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HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE 

No. 8 

Editors : 

HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. 
Prof. GILBERT MURRAY, Litt.D,, 

LL.D., F.B.A. 
Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. 
Prof. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. 



THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE 

VOLUMES NOW READY 

HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE . G. H. Peeeis 

POLAR EXPLORATION DB.W.B.BEncE,LL.D.,P.R.S.B. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . . . Hilaibe Belioo, M. P. 
THE STOCK EXCHANGE : A Short 

Studt op Investmeitt and Spbcuiation F. W. Hiest 

IRISH NATIONALITY Auce Stopford Green 

THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT .... J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P. 
PARLIAMENT : Its Histoet, Constitd- 

OTON, AMD PEACTICB SlE COUBTNAT ILBBET, K.C.B., 

K.C.S.L 
MODERN GEOGRAPHY Maeion I. Newbigin, D.S.C. 

(Lend.) 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE .... John Masefield. 
THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS . . D. H.Scott,M.A.,LL.D.,F.R.S. 

VOLUMES READY IN JULY 

THE OPENING-UP OF AFRICA . . Sm H. H. Johnston, G.C.M.G., 

K.C.B., D.Sc, F.Z.S. 

MEDLfflVAL EUROPE H. W. C. Davis, M.A. 

MOHAMMEDANISM D. S. Maegoliouth, M.A., 

D.Litt. 
THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH ... J. A. Hobson, M.A. 

HEALTH AND DISEASE W. Leslie Mackenzie, M.D. 

INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS A. N. Whitehead, Sc.D. P.R.S. 

THE ANIMAL WORLD F. W. Gamble, D.Sc, F.R.S. 

EVOLUTION J. Aethue Thomson, M.A., and 

Patrick Geddes, M.A. 

LIBERALISM L. T. Hobhouse, M.A. 

CRIME AND INSANITY De. C. A. Meecieb, F.R.C.P., 

F.R.C.S. 

t *^,* Other volumes in active preparation 



POLAR 
EXPLORATION 



BY 

WILLIAM S. BRUCE 

LL.D., F.R.S.E. 

LEADER OF SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC ("SCOTIA" ) 

EXPEDITION, 1902-4; DIRECTOR OF SCOTTISH 

OCEANOGRAPHICAL LABORATORY, 

EDINBURGH 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

LONDON 
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 






Copyright, 191 1, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



Ah 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



ICLA2S9277 



PREFACE 



I AM glad to have this opportunity of present- 
ing to a wide public an outline of the essential 
facts and problems of Polar Exploration. It is 
not more than introductory to a more comprehen- 
sive book which I hope to write when some leisure 
is afforded from the more real work of exploration 
and research. I must also note that it is not 
intended to be in any way a history of Polar 
Exploration. 

The book is simply a " traveller's sample," re- 
vealing to some extent what is in the great "ware- 
house"" of the Polar Regions. It is ha-sed, Jlrstlt/^ 
on the author's personal experiences during nine 
polar voyages — two to the Antarctic Regions, 
viz. in 1892-93 and 1902-04 ; seven to the Arctic 
Regions, viz. in 1896-97, in 1898 (two), in 1899, 
1906, 1907, and 1909 ; secondly, on many personal 
conversations with living polar explorers during 
the past twenty years, including several conversa- 
tions and correspondence with the veteran Sir 
Joseph Dal ton Hooker, O.M., who accompanied 
Sir James Clark Ross on his ever-memorable Ant- 
arctic voyage from 1839-1843, as well as conver- 
sation and correspondence with the leaders and 
many members of the staffs of every recent polar 
expedition. 



vi PREFACE 

Consequently the personal note predominates, 
and those parts of the Polar Regions which the 
author has visited are dealt with in greater detail 
than those which he has not yet had an opportu- 
nity of visiting. But the attempt is made to deal 
with facts and problems that are of general rather 
than local interest. 

I have to acknowledge kindly help in the pro- 
duction of this little book. Dr. R. N. Rudmose 
Brown has revised the text, especially the botani- 
cal section, and framed the index ; Mr. J. Y. 
Buchanan, Mr. R. T. Omond, and Mr. J. Boland 
have revised the sections dealing with the Physics 
of the Sea, Meterology, and Astronomy. Mrs. 
Bmce has been my amanuensis thi-oughout. 

William S. Beuce. 

Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory 
Ed'mhurgh, 1911 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I Astronomical Featttres of the Polar Regions 11 

II The Polar Regions 15 

III Land Ice 34 

IV Sea Ice and Coloration of Ice and Snow . . 54 
V Plant Life 88 

VI Animal Life 109 

VII Physics of the Polar Seas 169 

VIII Meteorology ,193 

IX Magnetism, Aurora, and Tides 217 

X Aims and Objects of Modern Exploration . . 236 

Index 255 



SOUTH POLAR 
CHART 

byW.S.Bruce.LLJ). 

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British Uiles 



sBMAItU 



M "^ Sandwich 

S.€eor]^ '•firoup 

A 
S- 

S.Oricne/s ,'' 



'*' giscoe Seo *" 






1 Ater/. \ 



Figures on Chart refer 
toTWrrterOuarters of 
Antarctic Expeditiens 

1 Scotia 

2 Antarctic 

3 LeFf-8n98is 

4 FburquoiFte? 

5 Belgics 

6 Discmery 

7 Wmrod 

8 Southern Cross 

9 6suss 




StaJKort/. 

.^^^Ncw Zealand 



NORTH POLAR 
CHART 

by W.S. Bruce, LL.D. 



N. PACtrtC 
OCBAAf 




A /t C r f C 
•« o c e A Af 

^ VPV^. :^0^ NortlixPolc 





CFojxmkJI b^^ 



FranzJosefL4^ 

■" Greenland^ 'Hope.l if„t„„^^^ 
ARCTIC "^ 

''^ ^OCEAt 




|U^ 

%.,-»-nceland 

N ATLANTIC ^y%^/j 

OCEAN Shet/amH?)t 

BRITISH 



DEDICATED BT PERMISSION TO 

SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, G.C.S.I., O.M.. F.R.S. 

NATURALIST TO THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 

1839 TO 1843, IN ADMIRATION OF HIS DEVOTED 

SERVICES TO ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION 

DURING SEVENTY-TWO YEARS 



POLAR EXPLOKATION 



CHAPTER I 

ASTRONOMICAL FEATURES OF THE 
POLAR REGIONS 

From the earliest days of European civil- 
isation it has been customary to define the 
direction of the sun at noon as well as the 
opposite direction. South and north are the 
terms that have been used by north-western 
Europe: hence North Pole for that end of the 
earth's axis towards which Europe stretches, 
and South Pole for the other end of the axis. 

Now there are very definite peculiarities of 
these two mathematical points, and I give a 
few of these to set the reader thinking. 

1. The sun is continuously above the horizon 
for six months, from our spring to our autumn 
equinoxes, and continuously below the horizon 
for the other six months. 

2. But there is only one time, namely noon, 

because all longitudes converge at the North 

Pole: whether it be light or dark it is always 

noon, because the sun is always due south. 
11 



12 POLAR EXPLORATION 

3. Though there is only one time there are 
diflFerent seasons, because these depend on the 
position of the earth in its orbit and on the 
inclination of the polar axis to the plane of 
the ecliptic. 

4. The apparent path of the sun is an as- 
cending spiral from the vernal equinox till the 
summer solstice, and a descending spiral from 
the summer solstice till the autumnal equinox. 
Thus it is possible to take meridian altitude of 
the sun during the whole summer six months 
at the North Pole, at any moment, or at 
every moment, no matter where the sun is 
in the spiral. Exactly the same thing may 
be said of the moon when she is north of the 
Equator. 

5. The greatest possible altitude of the sun 
above the horizon is about 23j degrees (ac- 
tually at Greenwich mean time, 1911, June 
22nd, 2^ p.m., 23° 27' 9".8). It reaches this 
altitude only at that date. 

6. The constellations never set at the North 
Pole, their apparent paths (neglecting their own 
very tiny movements) being in circles, round 
the Pole; hke the sun, they are always south 
of the North Pole. 

7. When standing at the North Pole it is 
impossible to look in any other direction along 
the earth's surface but south. To the left or 
to the right, behind or in front of the person 



ASTRONOMICAL FEATURES 13 

standing at the North Pole the direction is 
always south. 

These conditions apply equally to the South 
Pole, except that the terms north and south 
have in every case to be reversed. It is very 
important to get a proper grip of these facts 
if one is to have a proper conception of where 
the Polar Regions are, and to account for va- 
rious special phenomena peculiar to these two 
parts of the earth. 

Theoretically it is convenient to define the 
Polar Regions as those areas that lie round 
about the North Pole and round about the 
South Pole, within the Arctic and Antarctic 
Circles, which are defined by being those cir- 
cles of latitude where the sun on midwinter- 
day does not rise and where on midsummer- 
day it does not set. 

In contrast to the tropical regions, where 
the sun is always vertically overhead at some 
place at noon on two days (at the north and 
south limits on one day) every year, and al- 
ways reaches in every part an altitude exceed- 
ing about 43 degrees, in the Polar Regions the 
sun is never more than 23| degrees above the 
horizon. On account of this great obliquity of 
the sun's rays in the Polar Regions the sun has 
less heating power and the regions are colder, 
while in winter intense cold prevails because 
of the entire absence of the sun. 



14 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Having now obtained a general idea of the 
position of the Polar Regions on the earth's 
surface let us pass on to consider their gen- 
eral features. And the Antarctic Regions are 
considered first, because it was there, about 
twenty years ago, that I first received my polar 
baptism and first learnt what the Polar Regions 
were. 



CHAPTER II 

THE POLAR REGIONS 

I HAVE defined the Antarctic Regions as 
lying within the Antarctic Circle, that is, 
south of 66|° S. latitude, but in 1892, on board 
the Scottish whaler Baloena, I found that this 
definition broke down, for we fell in with polar 
conditions before we reached latitude 60° S., 
some 500 miles south-eastward of Cape Horn, 
in the neighbourhood of the South Shetland 
Islands. My impressions of the circumstances 
are as vivid to-day as then, and more vivid, 
perhaps, than many other even more strik- 
ing incidents during that and subsequent 
voyages. 

Sailing south-eastward from the Falkland 
Islands across the breezy southern ocean, we 
came into weather, although it was mid-sum- 
mer, having temperatures about freezing-point. 
This cold weather was accompanied by fairly 
frequent fogs which occasionally were very 
dense, till one day, when we were about 80 
miles north-east of the South Shetland Islands, 
the fog divided, opening up a vista at the far 

15 



16 POLAR EXPLORATION 

end of which a gleam of sunshine revealed a 
huge shadowy iceberg — brilliantly white. Sail- 
ing on we came nearer to the berg, which was 
several miles off when we first sighted it, and 
found it to be a mass of ice which probably 
rose fully a hundred feet out of the water 
and was about haK a mile long. The top of 
it looked as flat as a billiard table, and the 
sides were vertical white cliffs; some cracks, 
mostly vertical and lenticular, were strongly 
defined, because in them was to be seen the 
most brilHant and intense blue one can im- 
agine. At the water-line the ice cliff was 
worn by the lashing of the relatively warm 
waves (32.3° F.), and here and there were 
caves at sea-level where green intermingled 
with intense blue. Into these caves the water 
rushed with a resounding roar, until each cave 
was a seething cauldron, and in some cases 
the spray from these caves rose high into the 
air. The sea was literally swarming with Cape 
pigeons and blue petrels, while great finner 
whales played and spouted in the vicinity of 
the ship. The Cape pigeons were so numer- 
ous that, on putting a small piece of fat over 
the side of the ship, one could catch them 
quite easily with an angler's landing-net. The 
sUk tow-net showed that the water was swarm- 
ing with a small shrimplike creature called Eu- 
phausia, several species of smaller Crustacea, 



THE POLAR REGIONS 17 

and some diatoms; the diatoms blocked the 
meshes of the silk and made the tow-net slimy. 
In the evening we sighted another berg to lee- 
ward, and at night two other icebergs on 
either bow of the ship. The sun set only a 
little to west of south, and a light band of 
brilliant sky stretched along the southern ho- 
rizon much the same as is seen in Scotland 
in June. During that night we passed sev- 
eral bergs in the fog, which came down and 
enveloped us again; we also met some nasty 
irregular ragged bits of hard clear ice, each 
about the size of a cottage, called "growlers" 
by Arctic seamen on account of the sound 
they made when rolling in the waves. These 
growlers are literally floating rocks which would 
rip the sides out of an ordinary iron steamer. 
We were truly in the Antarctic Regions, al- 
though more than 300 miles north of the An- 
tarctic Circle. For this and other reasons I 
prefer to define the Antarctic Regions as being 
bounded by the average limits of floating ice. 
This line is almost entirely north of 60° S., 
except to the south of the Indian Ocean and 
to the south of New Zealand and Tasmania, 
where it dips to the southward. It trends 
farthest north in the South Atlantic Ocean, 
reaching about 50° S, to the south of Cape 
Colony, and 55° S. to the south-east of the 
Falklands. Within this limit we find the con- 



18 POLAR EXPLORATION 

ditions very much as I have described them 
on that first day when, on board the Balcena, 
we fell in with the ice. 

But besides defining the limits of Antarctic 
ice, this boundary is useful in other respects, 
for it includes the whole of the continental 
land mass of the Antarctic Regions, which at 
several points protrudes beyond the Antarc- 
tic Circle, notably at Graham Land and Wilkes 
Land. It also includes most of the really typ- 
ical Antarctic islands, such as South Georgia, 
the Sandwich Group, South Orkney, or Powell 
Islands, South Shetlands, Bouvet Island, Bal- 
leny Islands, etc. It also excludes continental 
terminations of South America and South Africa 
as weU as Austraha. The Antarctic Regions 
are of exactly opposite character to the Arc- 
tic Regions; whereas in the Arctic Regions 
there exists a polar basin of considerable 
depth, surrounded by an almost complete ring 
of continental land, composed of the north- 
em parts of Europe, Asia and America, in the 
Antarctic Regions we have an extensive con- 
tinental land mass surrounded by a contin- 
uous ocean. So far we know httle of this vast 
continent, which is probably as large as Europe 
and Australia combined. What coast-line has 
been discovered was nearly all discovered 
before any of the more recent expeditions 
sailed to the south. It is interesting to note 



THE POLAR REGIONS 19 

that the depth of the North Polar Basin is 
more or less equal to the height of the An- 
tarctic continent. 

Ross, Wilkes, D'Urville, Biscoe, Kemp, 
Palmer, Johnson and Morell all made impor- 
tant land discoveries previous to 1844. Since 
that time the most important land discovery- 
was Coats Land, which not only filled up a 
gap between Enderby Land and New South 
Greenland, but which placed the edge of the 
Antarctic continent 500 miles farther north 
than Murray and others had mapped it. Of 
the interior of the Antarctic continent we 
know but little; the pioneer journey of Armi- 
tage, at an altitude of 9,000 feet, gave us our 
first insight into the nature and extent of the 
continental ice cap of which we have further 
knowledge from the journeys of Scott, Shackle- 
ton and David. {The Heart of the Antarctic, 
Sir E. H. Shackleton: London, 1910.) 

There are two theories regarding the Antarc- 
tic continent: one, that it is one continuous 
land mass; the other, that it is divided by a 
channel from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. 
To my mind all the evidence points to one 
land mass, and for the following reasons, al- 
though it should be noted that Prof. Penck 
and others adhere to a belief in two. Look- 
ing at the map we will find that the outline 
of the south of South America is almost the 



20 POLAR EXPLORATION 

same as that part of the Antarctic continent 
known as Graham Land; each terminates in a 
pointed extremity which is largely broken up 
into clusters of islands and tends to turn 
towards the eastward; each has a group of 
islands lying to the eastward — South America 
the Falkland Islands, and Graham Land the 
South Orkneys. We notice also that whereas 
the west coast of South America is rugged and 
broken up into many islets and channels, the 
east coast is of simpler outline. These fea- 
tures also hold good for Graham Land. Look- 
ing at the general sculpture of these two lands 
we find that South America has a high rugged 
mountain range on the west, parallel with the 
coast, and broad plains of low elevation on 
the east; the same features hold good in the 
description of Graham Land, as far as it is 
known. The most recent explorations of Dr. 
Jean Charcot still further emphasise these re- 
semblances. Finally, looking at the geology, we 
find that both the west coast of South Amer- 
ica and the west coast of Graham Land are 
made up of the same class of folded rocks, 
composed of gneisses, granites, etc., and that 
along each coast there is a tendency for ac- 
tive volcanoes to appear; but on the east 
coast of both lands there are sedimentary 
rocks of more recent origin with plateau for- 
mation. In fact, the only marked difference 



THE POLAR REGIONS 21 

that occurs is in the glaciation, which is ac- 
counted for by difference of latitude. 

Now give the globe a haK turn round its 
axis and compare Victoria Land and its 
islands with Australia and its islands. We 
will find the outline of Victoria Land on its 
east coast has a remarkable resemblance to 
the east coast of Australia. Lying off the 
coast of Australia we have New Zealand and 
other islands which have their counterpart in 
the smaller islands off Victoria Land, notably 
Balleny Isles, Possession, Coulman, and Ross 
Islands. The east coast of Australia is flanked 
by a great mountain range parallel to the 
coast, which slopes away to the westward, 
and Victoria Land has exactly the same fea- 
ture. Geologically both Australia and Vic- 
toria Land are plateau formations of similar 
type and age. The volcanic character of New 
Zealand compares with the volcanic islands 
of Balleny, Possession, Coulman and Ross; 
all are on folded mountain ranges. 

There is a further striking feature. The 
whole of the west coast of South and North 
America has the same character in being 
skirted by parallel folded mountain systems, 
bearing a certain number of volcanoes. This 
general Eastern Pacific character also holds 
good for the west coast of Graham Land. So, 
also, the general type of the Western Pacific 



22 POLAR EXPLORATION 

appears to be carried over into Victoria Land, 
and it is obvious that both these systems on 
the east and on the west of the Pacific Ocean 
are essentially the same except for secondary 
modifications. In consequence, we have all 
coasts of the Pacific, as far as they are known, 
of exactly similar formation in all essential re- 
spects. To my mind, therefore, there can be 
no doubt that this type of coast is continuous 
along the Pacific coasts of Antarctica, and 
that the mountain system of Victoria Land 
and its islands links up with the mountain sys- 
tem of Graham Land, almost certainly exclud- 
ing the possibility of a break to the east of 
Victoria Land by a channel across to the Wed- 
dell Sea. Neither Penck nor Darwin appears 
to have given suflScient consideration to the 
principles and characters of different coastal 
types in reaching the conclusions they have 
regarding a channel or deep inlet under the 
Ross Barrier across the Antarctic continent, 
slightly to the Pacific side of the South Pole. 
Evidence obtained from the distribution of ice, 
deep-sea deposits, and marine fauna all bears 
out this contention of a continuity of the land. 
This great mountain chain forms, in fact, 
the backbone of Antarctica, and probably more 
or less follows the sea coast between Victoria 
Land and Graham Land just as it does in 
those lands themselves. 



THE POLAR REGIONS 23 

Very little is known of the continental coast- 
line to the south of the Atlantic and the 
Indian Oceans, but there is every reason to 
believe that the coast-line in these parts will 
resemble in general character the coast-lines 
of the rest of the lands bordering on the At- 
lantic and Indian Oceans: that is to say, that 
the coasts will not be precipitous except at 
points where mountain ranges cut them at 
right angles to the coast, and, meeting the sea, 
form cliffs and capes. The general formation 
of these will probably prove to be of the pla- 
teau type truncated by the sea. 

The little we do know of the coast-line in 
this region certainly does not refute this opin- 
ion. The earliest discovery of continental 
coast-line in this region was by two Ameri- 
can sealers. Captains Johnson and Morell in 
1823, who reported a large tract of land to 
the south of the South Orkneys, which John- 
,son called New South Greenland. Biscoe in 
1831 discovered a large tract of land from 
about 12° 22' E. to Enderby Land, in about 
52° E. The next important discoveries were 
those of Wilkes and D'Urville in 1840, to the 
south of the Indian Ocean — ^Adelie Land and 
Cote Clarie. The other land-falls of impor- 
tance to the south of the Atlantic and Indian 
Oceans have not been until recent years, when 
von Drygalski discovered Wilhelm Land, which 



24 POLAR EXPLORATION 

is evidently a south-western extension of Termi- 
nation Land, and when Coats Land was discov- 
ered by the Scottish expedition. Considerable 
scepticism is shown, especially in England, 
regarding the reported land of Morell and 
Johnson; but not in Scotland, for the in- 
vestigations of the Scotia undoubtedly tend to 
suggest the presence of New South Greenland, 
as do also the observations made on board the 
Erebus and Terror in 1843. There is little 
doubt that Graham Land is joined to Coats 
Land by New South Greenland, and that the 
Weddell Sea does not extend very far to the 
south in that region. Again, there appears 
to be little doubt that Coats Land is contin- 
uous with Enderby Land, and that the latter, 
through Kemp Land and Wilhelm Land, is 
continuous with Wilkes Land. Wilkes de- 
scribed high land, and so did Biscoe; and 
these capes may well be the termination of 
mountain ranges more or less at right angles 
to the coast; but, generally speaking, the 
coast of Antarctica does not appear to be lofty 
on the Atlantic and Indian Ocean sides. Coats 
Land, for instance, is entirely iceclad and 
slopes gently towards the sea, mostly termi- 
nating in an ice cliff possibly 100 feet high 
and at several points sloping right down to 
sea-level. Several of those on board the Scotia 
confidently affirmed that they could see moun- 



THE POLAR REGIONS 25 

tain peaks in the distance, but there is con- 
siderable doubt if that was actually the case. 
{The Voyage of the Scotia, R. C. Mossman, 
J. H. H. Pirie, and R. N. Rudmose Brown : 
Edinburgh, 1906, p. 236.) If there were moun- 
tains they must have been at a great distance; 
all that I could see from the ship along the 
150 miles of coast-line that we mapped was 
the iceclad land rising inland in undulating 
slopes to an unknown height. 

There are several other points to be consid- 
ered, but what I wish to emphasise here is, 
that there is round about the South Pole a con- 
tinent of enormous size, filling almost the whole 
region within the Antarctic Circle, and that 
it is probably one, and not two land masses. 
This continent has an area of about five and 
a half million square miles, an area equal to 
that of Europe and Australia combined. Out- 
side this great continent, almost entirely 
iceclad, lies the Great Southern or Antarctic 
Ocean. In the far south of this there is rela- 
tively fine weather broken intermittently with 
terrific storms — blizzards from Antarctica. In 
the more northern parts of this ocean there 
is continual stormy weather from the west, 
which causes high seas to run, and earns for 
this part of our globe the name of the 
"roaring forties" and the "shrieking fifties." 
That part of the Great Southern Ocean which 



26 POLAR EXPLORATION 

falls within the average limit of floating ice 
we will here consider as being within the An- 
tarctic Regions. 

It is not proposed to discuss here the history 
of Antarctic exploration, which has recently 
been done so ably by Dr. H. R. Mill in The 
Siege of the South Pole, but I wish to give in 
more or less detail, as far as limited space will 
allow, an account of Antarctic seas and lands. 
This can perhaps best be done by dwelling 
more especially on those parts that I have 
seen myself, namely, Graham Land, South 
Shetlands, South Orkneys, Coats Land, and 
the Weddell and Biscoe Seas, and by giving 
a more general account of parts I have read 
of or heard of by conversation with other 
Antarctic explorers, including the veteran Sir 
Joseph Hooker who sailed with Sir James 
Clark Ross in 1839, and others who have 
visited the Antarctic Regions since. 

The striking incident of meeting ice at sea 
for the first time in one's life, and especially 
falling in with those giant Antarctic icebergs 
— grim sentinels of the Antarctic — ^produces 
even in most matter-of-fact individuals a sense 
of wonder and awe. Their stupendous size, 
their exquisite architectural composition, more 
magnificent than the temples and pyramids 
of Egypt, more overpowering in solemnity 
than the Sphinx — make the most thoughtless 



THE POLAR REGIONS 27 

think for a moment of the Power that controls 
the forces of nature. 

During some years there are many more 
icebergs in the great Southern Ocean than 
during others, and the summer of 1892-93 — 
that is to say, our northern winter, November 
till February — was such a year. On Decem- 
ber 23rd and 24th, 1892, on board the Baloena, 
we fell in with a great host of bergs in the 
vicinity of the Danger Islets ; they were all 
of great size, some being 3 or 4 miles long ; 
at one time I counted as many as sixty from 
the deck, while more could be seen from the 
mast head. They were all of similar height, 
about 100 or 150 feet high. Each one was 
table-topped. At one time we passed through 
a regular street, lined on each side with tower- 
ing bergs, each a temple in itself, now Doric, 
now Egyptian, each perfectly carved and 
shaped, each purer and whiter than the other, 
glittering in the sun, pearl grey in the shade 
and rich blue in the clefts and caves which 
pierced their sides. This street or avenue 
was several miles long, indeed some individual 
bergs were fully half-a-mile in length ; side 
avenues opened into this main avenue. Some- 
times we sailed into an open piazza, sometimes 
past the end of so narrow and winding a pas- 
sage that it would have been dangerous even 
for one of our ship's boats to attempt to navi- 



28 POLAR EXPLORATION 

gate it. Presently we came out of this closely 
packed group of bergs into the open sea, where 
there were still many bergs scattered from 
horizon to horizon. Besides bergs we now 
fell in with pack ice, amongst which were 
" bergy-bits," that is, small irregular bits that 
had become detached from the bergs. Here 
and there a seal lay on the pack, sleeping or 
gracefully lifting its head to look at our ships 
with its large dark eyes, little dreaming of the 
cruel fate that was to befall his companions 
a few days later. Fussy penguins, with their 
white breasts and black backs, jumped out of 
the water on to the pieces of pack ice, and by 
their rather harsh cry and quaint attitudes 
appeared to be entering a protest at being dis- 
turbed in this unseemly manner. There was 
almost a perfect calm, and despite a dense 
canopy of cloud overhead the horizon was 
clear and bright. At midnight on Christmas 
Eve, in latitude 64° 13' S. a little to the east 
of Mount Haddington, we were stopped from 
pushing any farther to the south because of 
solid field ice that stretched across our bow. 
Afterwards the edge of this ice was examined 
and was found to stretch for about 250 miles 
north-eastward without a break through which 
any of the three Scottish whalers, that were 
there together at the time, could have passed. 
It is true that, ^ath united attack, these stout 



THE POLAR REGIONS 29 

ice-armoured ships could have penetrated some 
miles through this ice by charging and re- 
charging, by sawing and blasting, and, if there 
had been a sign of open water at the back of 
the ice, it might have been worth doing this 
to see if the whale, reported by Ross in 1843 
and described by him as greatly resembling 
the Bowhead Whale, was seeking safe retreat 
there. But all the evidence indicated that 
there was no water at the back and to the south 
of this ice, but that it continued in a more or 
less solid field till it came up against land, 
which was invisible from the ship's deck, ex- 
cept to the W. and S.W., and even from the 
crow's nest at the ship's mainmast-head. 

In technical whalers' language we "fastened 
on to the floe" that night and lay there during 
the whole of Christmas Day, the only day of 
rest we had for the next two months. The 
scene was of wonderful beauty, and I cannot 
do better than quote the graceful description 
by the able artist-chronicler of the voyage. 

"Those who have felt," says Burn Murdoch 
(From Edinburgh to the Antarctic, by W. G. 
Burn Murdoch), "the peace of a summer night 
in Norway or Iceland, where the day sleeps 
with wide-open eyes, can fancy the quiet 
beauty of such a night among the white floes 
of the Antarctic. To-day has passed, glister- 
ing in silky white, decked with sparkling jewels 



30 POLAR EXPLORATION 

of blue and green, and we thought surely we 
had seen the last of Nature's white harmonies; 
the evening came, pensive and soothing and 
grey, and all the white world changed into 
pale violet, pale yellow, and rose. 

"A dreamy stillness fills the air. To the 
south the sun has dipped behind a bank of 
pale grey cloud, and the sky above is touched 
with primrose Hght. Far to the north the 
dark, smooth sea is bounded by two low bergs, 
that stretch across the horizon. The nearest 
is cold violet white, and the sunlight strikes 
the farthest, making it shine like a waU of 
gold. The sky above them is of a leaden, pea- 
cock blue, with rosy cloudlets hanging against 
it — such colouring as I have never before seen 
or heard described. To the westward, across 
the gulf, we can just distinguish the blue-black 
crags jutting from the snowy lomonds. Little 
clouds touched with gold and rose lie nestling 
in the black corries, and gather round the 
snowy peaks. To the south, in the centre of 
the floe, some bergs lie cold and grey in the 
shadow of the bank of clouds. They look like 
Greek temples imprisoned for ever in a field 
of snow. A faint cold air comes stealing to 
us over the floe : it ripples the yellow sky re- 
flection at the ice-edge for a moment, and faUs 
away. In the distance a seal is barking — a 
low muffled sound that travels far over the 



THE POLAR REGIONS 31 

calm water, and occasionally a slight splash 
breaks the silence, as a piece of snow separates 
from the field and joins its companion pieces 
that are floating quietly past our stern to 
the north — a mysterious, silent procession of 
soft, white spirits, each perfectly reflected in 
the lavender sea. 

"Nature sleeps — breathlessly — silent; perhaps 
'she dreams of the spirit world, that seems to 
draw so close to her on such a night. 

"By midnight the tired crew were all below 
and sound asleep in their stuffy bunks. But 
the doctor and I found it impossible to leave 
the quiet decks and the mysterious daylight, 
so we prowled about and brewed coffee in the 
deserted galley. There we watched the sun 
pass behind the grey bergs in the south for a 
few seconds, and appear again, refreshed, with 
a cool silvery light. A few flakes of snow 
floated in the clear, cold air, and two snowy 
petrels, white as the snow itseff, floated along 
the ice-edge. 

"A cold, dreamy, white Christmas morning 
— ^beautiful beyond expression." 

These lines recall to me that wonderful 
scene, more charming and restful than many 
another Arctic and Antarctic scene I have seen 
since. The dignity, the solemn grandeur, the 
colour, and the marvellous silence all helped 
to leave a lasting impression upon me, and, 
in spite of many discomforts, difficulties, and 



32 POLAR EXPLORATION 

dangers that I have had to face since in the 
north and the south, it is this wonderful picture 
and others Uke it that call me back again. 

I have given this picture as an artistic pres- 
entation, and now I am going through the 
rather ruthless process of analysing the subjects 
in the picture. In the first place, every one 
will agree that we were, without doubt, in 
what might be fairly described as the Ant- 
arctic Regions, although, when the Baloena 
lay anchored to impenetrable ice on Christ- 
mas Day, we were outside the Antarctic Circle 
by two and a half degrees, or 150 miles. The 
first definition therefore defining the Antarctic 
Regions as lying within the Antarctic Circle 
breaks down completely, just as it did ten 
years later when on board the Scotia we met 
with impenetrable ice not very far south of 
latitude 59° S. to the east of the South Ork- 
neys, or when, during the winter of 1903, the 
Scotia was frozen up for eight months in Scotia 
Bay, which is situated between 60 and 61 
degrees south latitude. 

Mention has been made of icebergs, of field 
ice, of floe ice, and of pack ice. Let me explain 
what these terms mean. It has been shown 
that there is a great area of land, probably one 
great continent, round about the South Pole. 
This continent is surrounded by the Great 
Southern Ocean, and, over the region occupied 
by that ocean, within the average limit of float- 



THE POLAR REGIONS 33 

ing ice, there are even in summer time wintry- 
conditions; so much so that most of the pre- 
cipitation that occurs is in the form of snow 
instead of rain. In midsummer, when cruising 
in the vicinity of the Antarctic continent, bliz- 
zards off the land cause the temperature to fall 
even below zero Fahrenheit, and in winter on 
Antarctica itself a temperature has been re- 
corded as low as 68 degrees below zero Fah- 
renheit, or 100 degrees of frost. The lowest 
air-temperature has been recorded at Verk- 
hoyansk in Siberia, namely, - 90° F., or 122 
degrees of frost. From this it will be seen 
that, as most of the Antarctic land lies well 
within the Antarctic Circle, practically all 
precipitation must be in the form of snow, 
and that little melting takes place except where 
the sun gets very favourable play. On black 
rocks the sun's he&t may be absorbed, and 
in sheltered corries, where there may be con- 
siderable melting, resulting in the formation 
of small burns and tarns. 

On the rocks a few lichens will grow; on 
softer, more crumbly, and flatter expanses a 
few mosses may thrive, and amongst these 
mosses and in the tarns a few minute forms 
of animal and vegetable life will flourish, which 
have sharp alternate spells of activity or pas- 
sivity according as the temperature is above 
or below the freezing-point. 



CHAPTER m 

LAND ICE 

Under the conditions of low temperature 
■which have been described, even if there is 
only a very slight snowfall in the heart of 
Antarctica, there must be a constant accumu- 
lation of snow upon the land. This snow by 
its own incumbent weight gets compressed into 
ice, which fills /conies and glens, and covers 
any flat land there may be with a great depth 
of soHd ice. But the accumulation cannot 
go on indefinitely, and the ice begins to flow, 
first down the steeper glens, then down even 
the least inclined stretches of the land, forced 
by the great mass of ice always accumulating 
from behind. It may even get pushed over 
flat if not actually rising groimd, and eventu- 
ally reaches the sea. If the sea be shallow it 
may push out a considerable distance from the 
land, ultimately floating free from the bottom. 
Fresh snow is all the while falling, and adding 
to the whole. Blizzards come and drive the 
powderj^ loose snow from one place to another, 
and the hard-driving wind binds the powder 



LAND ICE 35 

into solid ice. Imagine all this on an enor- 
mous scale! Not over an area of a dozen or 
a hundred, or even a thousand square miles, 
but over an area as large as Europe and 
Australia combined, then we have a picture 
of what is happening over the length and 
breadth of Antarctica! The ice thus accumu- 
lated from snowfall, thus consolidated from 
loose snow into solid ice by pressure, gets 
pushed ultimately into the sea. Let me in- 
dicate what happens by referring for a moment 
to a phenomenon with which all of us are 
familiar. A snowstorm whitens all the country 
round and every roof has a coating of snow 
some six inches thick. The snow gets bound 
together and remains a more or less solid cov- 
ering on the roof, till one day it slips off from 
various causes in irregular pieces, all about 
six inches thick and perhaps several feet across, 
and crashes down on the roadway beneath. 
But if the eaves of the roof dipped into water 
at that level, then this great sheet of icy snow 
would, when slipping from the roof, float off 
on the surface of the water. The floating 
sheets of icy snow — "floating ice islands" — ■ 
would be of various areas, but they would all 
be flat-topped, and of a uniform thickness of 
six inches, the sides would be more or less 
perpendicular, and the greater part of the 
thickness would be below the surface of the 



36 POLAR EXPLORATION 

water, the amount depending on the solidity 
of each sheet of icy snow, but possibly one inch 
might be above water to five inches below. 
Magnify your roof, magnify your ice covering 
which has slipped off the roof and floated off 
into the water, magnify your snowfall of a 
single night into that of more than a thousand 
years, make every inch of thickness 100 feet, 
and you have models on a scale of 1 to 1,200 
of Antarctic icebergs, at least as far as shape 
is concerned. The mode of formation also is 
somewhat similar to that of the Antarctic ice- 
bergs, although probably the great ice-fields 
that come flowing over extensive stretches 
of gently undulating or more or less flat land, 
and even what would be shallow sea were the 
ice not there, are fed not only by the inter- 
mittent falls of snow year after year and by 
the drift brought from the mountains and 
inland ice, but also by glaciers which act as 
feeders to these low-lying ice-fields, and which 
keep on pushing the whole mass seaward until 
great flat-topped pieces, exactly similar in 
shape to the flat-topped snow islands from 
the roof, float out to sea. 

One of these great ice-fields lies to the south 
of New Zealand, terminating in an ice cliff 
in the Ross Sea, which is usually known as 
the Ross Barrier. This great barrier was 
discovered by Ross in 1840, and was visited 



LAND ICE 37 

by him during two successive seasons. It 
Las been now visited by several expeditions 
during recent years, especially by those under 
the leadership of Scott and Shacldeton. This 
ice cliff, varying in height from almost sea- 
level to about 100 feet above the sea, stretches 
in an east and west direction between Mounts 
Erebus and Terror and Edward Land for a 
distance of nearly 300 miles. It is quite easy 
to imagine that pieces many miles in length 
and breadth might break off and float out to 
sea, as well as almost innumerable smaller 
pieces from a mile or two in length and 
breadth to only a few feet. This is exactly 
what does happen, and it certainly must occur 
in other parts of the Antarctic Regions besides 
the Ross Sea. Those countless bergs seen by 
us on board the Balcsna in 1892-93, and again 
those seen by all on board the Scotia during 
her two cruises in the Weddell Sea, as well as 
those that drifted past the South Orkneys for 
eight months during the winter of 1903, and 
those seen by Charcot between 70° W. and 
124° W., certainly did not come from the Ross 
Barrier, but from similar barriers, perhaps 
even more extensive than the Ross Barrier. 
Other barriers must occur elsewhere in the 
Antarctic Regions to account for the host of 
table-topped bergs that are scattered all over 
the Great Southern Ocean, and indeed Nor- 



38 POLAR EXPLORATION 

denskjold lias described one on the east coast 
of Graham Land. The greater size of the 
bergs on the Atlantic Ocean than on the 
Pacific side of Antarctica indicates the greater 
scale of the ice-sheet towards the Weddell Sea 
than towards the Ross Sea, Moreover, after 
the reports of the latest expeditions, it appears 
probable that the larger and more numerous 
bergs that occur to the south of the Atlantic 
and Indian Oceans are not wholly comparable 
in their formation and structure to those found 
in the Ross Sea, in the neighbourhood of the 
Ross Barrier. 

The whole question of the Ross Barrier and 
a barrier described by Nordenskjold on the 
east coast of Graham Land, which he calls an 
"ice-terrace," is most interesting. Buchanan 
and Nordenskjold have pointed out that these 
barriers, or ice-terraces, are composed of neve, 
not glacier ice, and with the Graham Land 
Barrier this especially appears to be the case. 
Neve, however, precludes the idea of flow, 
and we have the definite record of Scott that 
Bame, on visiting a depot Scott had laid down, 
found that it had "moved on." "Thirteen 
and a half months," says Scott, "after the 
establishment of the depot, he measured its 
displacement, and found it to be 606 yards. 
And thus almost accidentally we obtained a 
very good indication of the movement of the 



LAND ICE 39 

Great Barrier ice-sheet." {The Voyage of the 
Discovery, Captain R. F. Scott, vol. ii, p. 300 : 
London, 1905.) 

Doubtless, the Ross Barrier is fed consider- 
ably from the southern glaciers that run into 
it. Speaking of the discharges of the glaciers 
from the neve of the inland ice plateau, Scott 
says, "From observations which I have men- 
tioned one must gather that the movement 
of this most northerly of these discharges is 
very slow, but judging by the movement of the 
Barrier, the southern ones are more active." 

Now the only good channels by which 
glaciers run into this Barrier, and that are 
of importance and that come down from the 
Inland Ice-sheet or Inland neve over which 
Scott, Shackleton, Armitage, and David have 
led expeditions, probably come into it at 
half-a-dozen so-called inlets, such as Skelton, 
Mulock, Barne, and Shackleton Inlets, and 
the largest and most definite feeder known is 
the great glacier that Shackleton discovered 
and travelled up from the Barrier to the 
Inland Ice, namely, the Beardmore Glacier. 

But the ice that pours out of this evidently 
rapid-flowing and huge glacier is about 360 
nautical miles from the face of the cliff of 
the Ross Barrier. Now, according to Scott's 
estimated rate of flow of the Barrier at 606 
feet in thirteen and a half months, it would 



40 POLAR EXPLORATION 

take nearly 1,200 years for tliat ice to reach 
the Barrier face. Meantime the whole glacier 
— or should it be called ice-field? — is accumu- 
lating ice by snowfall and by drift from the 
surrounding mountains and plateaux, and must 
therefore be chiefly and, indeed possibly, wholly 
composed of this in the form of neve, but with 
this marked character, that it is a moving, 
and not a stationary, neve. At some future 
time, with more space at my disposal, I propose 
to further discuss this point, because a general 
definition of a neve is ice that collects in a 
lofty plain, from which glaciers flow out but 
which does not actually flow itself. The 
structure of neve ice is also distinct from that 
of glacier ice, the grain of which, in each 
case, is the leading feature. The flow of the 
Ross Barrier is, I believe, different from that 
of an ordinary glacier which comes running 
and tumbling down a gully or a glen, like 
water in a river down a river course, for in 
this case it comes over a low stretch of flat 
or gently shelving land or shallow sea and is 
ultimately afloat. It is rather pushed from 
behind than moving forward by its own gravi- 
tation. The flow Is probably different also 
in this respect, that, like a rapid river, there is 
a sort of rotatory movement of the ice of a 
glacier which is plastic by virtue of its disin- 
tegrated grains, each surrounded with a film 



LAND ICE 41 

of saline water, whereas very little of such 
movement would occur in the case of the 
barrier ice, and consequently the marks of 
stratification remain visible in the bergs which 
are calved from it. Except for a certain 
amount of glacier ice, which comes in from 
the feeders mentioned, the Ross Barrier is 
made up almost entirely of successive years' 
additions of snow and drift that fall upon it 
and accumulate in definite layers. The simile, 
therefore, that I have already given of the 
snow layer on a roof is all the more striking, 
only it is not the accumulation of snow of a 
single fall, not even of snow of a single year, 
but probably of snow that has fallen, say, 
during a thousand years. 

It would not do to pass by Nordenskjold's 
important observations with regard to his "ice 
terrace" at Graham Land, and it is best to 
quote his own words (Antarctica, Dr. Otto 
Nordenskjold : London, 1905) as follows : "At 
our noonday rest I was nearly falling into a 
broad crevasse, but said nothing of the matter, 
in order not to make the others anxious. But 
aU of a sudden the ice became more uneven, 
and at 5 p.m. our march came to a sudden 
and unexpected end in front of a canal-like 
crevasse, some 20 metres (65 feet) broad and 
almost as deep, which seemed to run in towards 
the land as far as the eye could reach. This 



42 POLAR EXPLORATION 

crevasse was of great interest, as it gave us 
a very clear idea of the inner structure of the 
ice. The same splendid stratification could 
be seen here as that which often occurs in the 
large icebergs, thus proving that the ice had 
been formed of layers of snow deposited, during 
long periods, the one upon the other, and being, 
too, a new proof of the transition, found in 
these regions, from glacier to sea ice. I think, 
too, that the Antarctic icebergs need not neces- 
sarily have their origin on land, but that they 
can also be built up on a base of sea ice in 
shallow water near the land." 

Nordenskjold's idea that Antarctic icebergs 
may be built up on a base of sea ice is not 
altogether new, for Captain Cook previously 
made that suggestion, though without the 
great scientific qualifications that Norden- 
skjold has for expressing such an opinion, and 
also without the knowledge of the existence 
of these barriers or ice-terraces that have been 
discovered in the Antarctic Regions by Ross 
and Nordenskjold since Cook's voyage. But 
from my experience in the Polar Regions during 
twenty years I cannot conceive of these Ant- 
arctic bergs being built up from a base of sea 
ice. 

There appears to be little doubt, however, 
that the Ross Barrier is to a great extent 
afloat. . But Sir George Darwin's "guess" 



LAND ICE 43 

"that the bay behind the barrier stretches 
past the South Pole and to the east of it as 
far as latitude 80°" is dangerous. All the 
evidence at our disposal from observations 
taken in the region of the Weddell Sea con- 
demns the idea that there is "an arm of the 
sea through to Weddell's Sea." {Tidal Obser- 
vations of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907. 
Sir G. Darwin.) 

The question is a most intricate and diffi- 
cult one, and cannot be properly solved until 
one or more expeditions set themselves to 
work in definitely making examinations of 
the ice of the different layers of the barriers, 
of the different layers of the bergs that have 
been shed from them, and various detailed 
measurements, and, what is perhaps as impor- 
tant as anything, the demarcation of the exact 
extent of these barriers, and a detailed survey 
of their surface as regards level. From the 
information we have at hand, it is very difficult 
to assert with certainty that the altitude of 
the Ross Barrier, when it emerges into the 
Ross Sea, is exactly the same as it is in 84° S., 
in the vicinity of the Beardmore Glacier. 

It can be imagined that bergs of almost any 
length might be broken off from such a barrier 
as the Ross Barrier, and, as a matter of fact, 
bergs of enormous size have been recorded 
by many voyagers to the South Seas. Even 



44 POLAR EXPLORATION 

allowing for exaggeration due to difficulty in 
gauging their length, bergs of several miles in 
length, up to 20 or 30, certainly do occur. A 
single glance at the ice chart for the Antarctic 
Regions published by the Admiralty will con- 
firm this statement. On board the Baloena 
and the Scotia we saw many bergs at least 4 
miles long : on one occasion, on the Baloena, 
we measured a berg 12 miles long, and on 
another occasion the Baloena steamed at the 
rate of 5 knots for 6 hours along the face of 
a berg, which made the length of it fully 30 
miles. Some bergs have been recorded of very 
much greater height than any I have seen, 
though the records are doubted by some 
Antarctic explorers of recent years, but in 
bad weather and in those tempestuous seas 
it is easy for such errors to occur, though 
it may be possible to have bergs considerably 
more than 150 feet high in the Antarctic if, 
by weathering, one of these flat-topped bergs 
should become tilted up on end. These 
gigantic bergs have at times been described 
as ice islands, and by the inexperienced mis- 
taken for land. 

There is another class of icebergs in the 
Antarctic Regions that are rather overlooked 
and lost sight of by being overshadowed ^ith 
so large a number of these great flat-topped 
bergs : these are bergs that are similar in 



LAND ICE 45 

every respect to those of the Arctic Regions. 
They are formed by much smaller and irregular 
pieces of ice breaking away from the snouts 
of glaciers similar to those found in Spitsbergen 
and other Arctic lands. These are only formed 
in smaller masses of land like the South Orkneys 
or those parts of the continent where relatively 
small individual glaciers run directly from 
the mountains into the sea, as they do at the 
northern extremity of Graham Land, at the 
South Orkneys, and several other places. 

The reader should now have a clear con- 
ception of what bergs are and how they are 
formed. He will see that they are a product 
of the land, and that they are composed 
entirely of fresh-water ice. They may be 
likened to great ships, dwarfing the greatest 
liners and battleships into beggarly insignifi- 
cance ; they sail forth to the open ocean drifted 
by deeper currents rather than the wind, moving 
to and fro with the tide ; blizzards and stormy 
seas lashing them, they drive onward with 
the currents of the sea, checked only by a 
contrary tide and helped onward by a favour- 
able one ; onward they go head to wind and 
head to sea, it matters little to them ! Should 
some smaller berg be driven against one of these 
leviathans, it is dashed to pieces against its 
icy cliffs, only with the sacrifice of a few chips 
falling off and around its victim ; should a 



46 POLAR EXPLORATION 

field of floe ice be driven by the wind against 
it, the floe is broken into fragments, whilst 
pack ice divides and passes by on either side. 
They drive onward and northward all-conquer- 
ing and resistless, and then venture forth into 
warmer seas. These seas are the most tem- 
pestuous in the world, and the presence of so 
much ice in water of a higher temperature not 
only encourages fogs, as does also the variation 
of the temperature of the air and water, but 
is exceedingly dangerous to ships navigating 
there ; especially as in these latitudes there 
are always dark nights of greater or less duration 
the whole year. But this is the beginning of 
the end : rotted by the warmer winds and 
seas, gutted out with caves up which great 
waves rush in wild confusion into the very 
bowels of these monsters, the bergs get under- 
mined, turn turtle, and break up into many 
smaller bergs and thousands of smaller irregular 
pieces. These irregular chips get still more 
weathered, and assume most fantastic shapes, 
and are hard as flint. They are the "growlers" 
and the "bergy bits" that we have already 
spoken of. 

Many an iron ship has had its side or bottom 
ripped out with growlers, and many a wooden 
ship has had its wooden walls "stove-in" wHith 
them, and nothing more has been heard of 
them or their living human freight. No chance 



LAND ICE 47 

for these poor wretches, even if a few managed 
to scramble wet, cold, and benumbed into a 
ship's boats. No hand to help, no one to hear 
their last cry of agony. If this is the power 
of a "growler," what chance has a helpless 
saihng-ship driving before a gale with a monster 
berg on its lee.? Her end must be a battering 
to death against its solid ice cliffs. 

Even with ships specially constructed for 
ice-navigation, the greatest care has to be 
exercised. I have seen a relatively small 
piece weighing hundreds of tons falling off 
one of these great bergs ; a smaller more 
weather-beaten berg splitting in two ; and, on 
another occasion, a berg turning turtle. In 
each case a great wave was generated, and 
had our ship been in too close proximity it 
would certainly have resulted in serious damage 
and probable loss of life, if not total destruction. 
Several Antarctic ships have had narrow 
escapes when navigating, under force of cir- 
cumstances, during dark nights in the vicinity 
of these great bergs ; the serious collision of 
Ross's ships among a chain of bergs during a 
hard gale on a dark night, was an instance 
as notable as their miraculous escape. On 
this terrible night the Erebus was trying to 
weather a berg when it was observed that the 
Terror was running down upon her. It was 
impossible for the Terror to clear both the Erebus 



48 POLAK EXPLORATION 

and the berg ; collision was inevitable. Ross 
graphically describes the incident, and says, 
"We instantly hove all aback to diminish the 
violence of the shock ; but the concussion 
when she struck us, was such as to throw almost 
every one off his feet ; our bowsprit, fore- 
topmast, and other smaller spars, were carried 
away ; and the two ships hanging together, 
entangled by their rigging, and dashing against 
each other with fearful violence, were faUing 
down upon the lofty berg under our lee, against 
which the waves were breaking and foaming 
to near the summit of its perpendicular cliffs. 
Sometimes she rose high above us, almost 
exposing her keel to view, and again descended 
as we in our turn rose to the top of the wave, 
threatening to bury her beneath us, whilst 
the crashing of the breaking upper works and 
boats increased the horror of the scene. Provi- 
dentially they gradually forged past each other, 
and separated before we drifted down amongst 
the foaming breakers, and we had the gratifi- 
cation of seeing her clear the end of the berg, 
and of feehng that she was safe. But she left 
us completely disabled ; the wreck of the spars 
so encumbered the lower yards, that we were 
unable to make sail, so as to get headway on 
the ship ; nor had we room to wear round, 
being by this time so close to the berg that the 
waves, when they struck against it, threw back 



LAND ICE 49 

tlieir sprays into the ship. The only way left 
to us to extricate ourselves from this awful 
and appaUing situation was by resorting to 
the hazardous expedient of a stern-board, which 
nothing could justify during such a gale and 
with so high a sea running, but to avert the 
danger which every moment threatened us of 
being dashed to pieces. The hea^'y rolling 
of the vessel, and the probability of the masts 
giving way each time the lower yard-arms 
struck against the cliffs, which were towering 
high above our mast-heads, rendered it a service 
of extreme danger to loose the mainsail ; but 
no sooner was the order given, than the daring 
spirit of the British seaman manifested itself 
— the men ran up the rigging with as much 
alacrity as on any ordinary occasion ; and 
although more than once driven off the yard, 
they after a short time succeeded in loosing 
the sail. Amidst the roar of the wind and 
sea it was difficult both to hear and to execute 
the orders that were given, so that it was three- 
quarters of an hour before we could get the 
yards braced bye, and the maintack hauled 
on board sharp aback — an expedient that 
perhaps had never before been resorted to by 
seamen in such weather : but it had the desired 
effect ; the ship gathered stern-way, plunging 
her stern into the sea, washing away the gig 
and quarter boats, and, with her lower yard- 



50 POLAR EXPLORATION 

arms scraping the rugged face of the berg, we 
in a few minutes reached its western termina- 
tion ; the 'under tow,' as it is called, or the 
reaction of the water from its vertical cliffs, 
alone preventing us being driven to atoms 
against it. No sooner had we cleared it than 
another was seen directly astern of us, against 
which we were running ; and the difficulty 
now was to get the ship's head turned round 
and pointed fairly through between the two 
bergs, the breadth of the intervening space 
not exceeding three times her own breadth ; 
this, however, we happily accomplished ; and 
in a few minutes, after getting the wind, she 
dashed through the narrow channel between 
two perpendicular walls of ice, and the foaming 
breakers which stretched across it, and the 
next minute we were in smooth water under 
its lee. 

"A cluster of bergs was seen to windward 
extending as far as the eye could discern, and 
so closely connected, that, except the small 
opening by which we had escaped, they appeared 
to form an unbroken continuous line ; it seems, 
therefore, not at aU improbable that the col- 
lision with the Terror was the means of our 
preservation, by forcing us backwards to the 
only practicable channel, instead of permitting 
us, as we were endeavouring, to run to the 
eastward, and become entangled in a labyrinth 



LAND ICE 51 

of heavy bergs, from which escape might have 
been impracticable, or perhaps impossible." 

The Challenger, too, had uncomfortable expe- 
riences on February 24, 1874, when the late 
Professor Moseley relates "it blew a gale, with 
dry drifting snow obscuring the view and ren- 
dering it impossible to see for a greater distance 
than 200 or 300 yards." After having failed 
to fasten on under the lee of a berg, "either a 
back current set the ship on to the berg, or the 
berg itseK was drifting towards us with the 
wind more rapidly than was expected. A col- 
hsion ensued and the jibboom was forced against 
the side of the berg and broken, together with 
some parts of the rigging in connection with it. 
The end of the jibboom left a starlike mark on 
the sloping wall of the berg, but had no other 
effect on the mass. The men who were aloft 
reefing the topsails, came down the back stays 
helter-skelter, expecting the top-gallant masts 
to fall, but no further damage ensued. 

"The weather became worse," continues 
Moseley ; "we were in rather a critical posi- 
tion. We were surrounded by bergs, with 
the weather so thick with snow that we could 
not see more than a ship's length, and a heavy 
gale was blowing. The full power of steam 
available was employed. Once we had a narrow 
escape of running into a large berg, passing 
only just about 100 yards to leeward of it by 



52 POLAR EXPLORATION 

making a stern-board, with all sails aback, 
and screwing full speed astern at the same time. 
The deck was covered with frozen powdery- 
snow, and forward was coated with ice from 
the shipping of seas." 

The following day the Challenger had forty 
icebergs in sight at noon. 

At the end of March 1903, whilst looking 
for a harbour in the South Orkneys, we had 
four anxious days and nights on board the 
Scotia, navigating amongst bergs in dirty 
weather, and on the 22nd of March 1903 
narrowly escaped shipwreck by collision with 
an iceberg. The nights at this time were very 
dark and of full twelve hours' duration, and it 
was blowing almost continually with fog and 
driving snow, especially when we came near 
the land. All day in such weather we would 
approach the land cautiously, looking in vain 
to find a safe harbour where the Scotia might 
winter ; and at night, to prevent being driven 
ashore, we would steam out to sea. To the 
north of the South Orkneys at this time the 
sea was clear of pack ice, but it was full of 
bergs, and the greatest vigilance had to be 
shown. On the afternoon of Sunday, March 
the 22nd, while endeavouring to discover 
Lethewaite Strait, the squalls became exceed- 
ingly violent, accompanied by snow and very 
heavy, blinding drift from the high mountains 



LAND ICE 53 

of Coronation Island. Suddenly, there seemed 
to be a lull in the wind, and the sea became 
smooth as glass — an ominous sign, for we had 
assuredly come under the lee of a berg or high 
land. "Hard-a-port !" was Captain Robert- 
son's swift order, and we swung round, and in 
doing so there loomed up on the port side the 
grim icy cliff of a huge berg, which almost grazed 
our yard-arms. Nothing but the able handling 
of the ship by my officers and crew, and their 
long experience of navigating among ice could 
have saved us from a most deadly collision, 
if not shipwreck : soon after, as the drift dimin- 
ished, we sighted another berg to leeward, and 
a little later, when it cleared, we found we were 
completely surrounded by bergs. 

Having dealt with Antarctic icebergs, let 
us now turn our attention to the other forms 
of ice I have mentioned. Apart from icebergs, 
all other Antarctic and indeed Polar ice is a 
product of the sea and not the land. 



CHAPTER IV 

SEA ICE AND COLORATION OF ICE AND SNOW 

At almost any time during even a summer 
cruise, when there is a perfect calm and when 
the sun is low during the night, there may be 
found under the shadow of loose pieces of ice, 
which gently rest upon a glassy sea, newly- 
formed fine ice spicules floating on the surface : 
these ice spicules are dissipated when the rays 
of the sun play once more on the surface of 
the water. If the temperature of the water 
be taken at such a time it will be found to be 
about 29° F., which is therefore clearly about 
the temperature at which the polar seas begin 
to freeze. That is to say, about 3° F., below 
the freezing-point of fresh water, which, as 
the reader will know, freezes at 32° F. 

Now, if the temperature of the air falls con- 
siderably below 28° F., say to 15° F., these 
ice spicules or crystals increase very rapidly, 
and the whole surface of the sea becomes cov- 
ered with a considerable layer of them, which 
is known by polar seamen as "Bay ice." If 
there is a snow shower the snow mixes with 
54 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 55 

these crystals and does not melt, but becomes 
part and parcel of this bay ice and is termed 
"slush." This may increase in thickness up 
to, say, 3 or 4 inches. If wind arises and sea 
is thrown into waves, it is found that the 
crystals are all separate and that the bay ice 
or slush is quite mobile, but it is not so mobile 
as the water without crystals, the shape of the 
waves being less sharp. In fact, the waves 
have an oily motion in a slush-covered sea. 
If one tries to pull in a boat, the pulling is 
found to be very heavy, and even the way of 
a large ship with good steam power is seriously 
impeded. The water is, in fact, "gluey." The 
"slush" may include in it any small fragments 
of ice that are floating on the sea at the time. 
Should there be a sudden lowering of the air- 
temperature with a heavy fall of snow, then the 
slush is formed in greater part of snow crystals, 
but has essentially the same qualities, except 
that it may be slightly more disintegrated than 
simple bay ice. 

If the weather is stormy and the water is 
considerably disturbed, though the slush in- 
creases considerably the spicules of ice and 
snow are evidently more or less free, though 
the water continues to become more and more 
gluey and waves become less and less pro- 
nounced: but, if it is calm weather, the crystals 
become entangled in somewhat fixed positions. 



56 POLAR EXPLORATION 

and adhering to each other the slush becomes 
a plastic crust on the surface, even less than 
an inch thick. This newly-formed sheet of 
ice is known as "Bay ice," because naturally 
it forms more easily in sheltered bays. Any 
new ice, from the thinnest film to ice of, say, 
6 to 8 inches in thickness, is termed "Bay ice." 
An ordinary wooden ice ship forges its way 
through it by continuously steaming ahead. 
Until this bay ice is some 4 or 5 inches thick 
it has a black appearance, being more or less 
translucent. But when it becomes thicker and 
more securely frozen together with some sharp 
frost it becomes whiter. 

A ship steaming through "Black ice" cuts 
through it as through a sticky scum, leaving 
a blacker lane of water astern, exactly the 
width of the ship, which does not close up until 
frozen over again. But through the thicker 
and more rigid "White ice" as the ship steams 
ahead a long split is formed ahead of her, through 
which she is able to forge her way. This more 
completely formed white ice is often easier for 
navigating a ship through, because it is more 
brittle than the thinner black ice, which is 
gluey in texture. 

Now, if the water remain calm very striking 
and beautiful developments occur. There is 
always some horizontal motion in the surface 
of the sea, even if it is a glassy calm, owing to 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 57 

currents or change of tide or other causes. For 
one of these reasons, the surface water spreads 
itself out by flowing away from one position 
a little more rapidly than the surface water 
at its rear is making up upon it, possibly on 
account of the dividing of the tides or a shght 
air blowing in a contrary direction in one 
quarter to that in the other; or it may be due 
to one of those deUcate air-currents that one 
sees looking over a glassy Scottish loch, which 
by mere chance enables one fairy yacht to move 
ahead of its becalmed fellows not many hundred 
yards distant/ Then the crust divides into 
thousands of hexagonal discs from about an 
inch to several feet in diameter, the diameter 
increasing with the thickness of the bay ice ; 
in between the discs, the shiny black hues of 
water broaden into wide lanes, and the surface 
of the sea is Uke a patchwork quilt. Now, 
some slight disturbance occurs, a little wind 
or tide, which causes the surface waters to come 
together again, the more or less hexagonal 
ice discs hustle together, their dehcate sides 
and corners are crushed and broken, and are 
curled up by the pressure. Thus they become 
subangular discs, each with a flat interior and 
a bruised turned-up edge, Uke a pancake. Again 
the motion of the surface of the water, due as 
often as not to tide, separates these discs ; 
again they are hustled together and bruised 



58 POLAR EXPLORi^TION 

and get their edges still more turned up. This 
goes on continually, and meanwhile the discs 
are thickening and solidifying with the con- 
tinued low temperature. This ice is known as 
"Pancake ice." 

By continued and increased frost the edges 
of the pancakes get frozen together and the 
whole surface of the sea has a continuous sheet 
of ice, only to be broken up again, however, 
into fresh though larger hexagons, which in 
turn are hustled together and form magnified 
pancakes many feet in diameter. These require 
greater force, as they increase in thickness 
and solidity, to break up again, until eventually 
they remain together in one great solid sheet 
v/hich nothing but a heavy gale and a tremen- 
dous sea will break into pieces. Those great 
sheets of ice, often many miles — it may be 
even hundreds of miles — in extent, are known 
in general terms as "Floes," or "Field ice," 
"Floe ice" usually being employed when they 
are less extensive, the term "Field ice" for ice 
that stretches unbroken beyond the limits of 
the eye from the crow's-nest. 

A "Land floe" is a floe that is formed next 
the land and that remains fast to the land, if 
the weather is light, during, it may be, the 
whole of the following summer. Such a floe 
continues to increase in thickness during the 
second winter, but it is unlikely that the weather 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 59 

will be so favourable as to allow this "land 
floe" to survive a second summer. But, on 
the other hand, the first year's floe may rot 
away entirely during the first summer after 
its formation. I saw this happen in Franz 
Josef Land during the summer of 1897 to a 
land fioe that I had watched from its birth to 
its disintegration, from the time the first 
"bay ice" was forming on the calm surface, 
through the period when the ice was thick 
and solid, until it had rotted entirely away. 

The surface of such a primitive floe is as 
level as the surface of the sea, and before the 
winter snows and the drift from the land or 
other parts of the same floe cover it, it has the 
texture of a good Brussels carpet on the surface. 
It is never smooth or glassy like the ice formed 
on the surface of fresh water. One cannot 
curl, slide, or skate upon it. Ski stick on it 
and sledges will not glide over it. The surface 
is sticky, and even at low temperatures it wets 
through the thin soles of fur boots and proves 
very destructive to them. It has a sort of 
efflorescent appearance and a saltish taste. 
It is, in fact, the saltest layer of the floe, which 
may freeze to a thickness of 5 or 6 feet; some- 
times less thick when strong currents flow un- 
der its surface, sometimes of greater thickness 
in sheltered lochs and bays. But while the 
surface of the floe is very salt, if a piece of 



60 POLAR EXPLORATION 

ice be taken out of any intermediate part it 
is found to be relatively fresh, certainly not 
nearly so salt as the sea itself. 

I shall return later on to this interesting 
question of the saltness of sea ice, at present 
I wish to deal only with general naked-eye 
structure. It can be seen that this ice is much 
more plastic than fresh-water ice. Fresh-water 
ice is relatively brittle, even in thin layers. 
Fresh-water ice, of the thickness of about 2| 
or 3 inches, will bear the weight of a man, but 
a child's foot would sink through sea ice of 
similar thickness, as if going through a layer 
of tough glue. You can push a stick through 
it, and a seal can push his nose and head through 
from below to get a breath. 

Now, if there be a slightly undulating swell 
running under this new ice one sees the ice 
following the same motion, but to a less 
marked degree. But the thicker and more 
soHd the ice, the more resistance is offered, 
until there comes a point where the sea-swell 
is killed. On the other hand, if the motion 
of the sea be more violent the more solid fields 
and floes are strained to breaking-point, and 
split up, first into small floes of a mile or two 
or at least several hundreds of feet in diameter, 
and these in their turn being repeatedly strained, 
twisted, and hurled in the wild confusion of 
the storm against each other, against bergs or 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 61 

against a rocky shore, get broken up into thou- 
sands of pieces only a few feet in diameter. 
This broken-up ice is known as "Pack ice." 
During the breaking up of the ice, the floes 
crush together and their edges are broken and 
curled and piled with the pressure. Farther 
away from the open sea, well in among the 
solid floes, this pressure is very heavy and one 
floe may run over and another under the other. 
The edges of an extended crack, that has formed 
in a weak place, curl over and over and a long 
ridge of broken-up ice is the result. These 
ridges are known as "Pressure ridges," and 
the irregular piles of ice of which they are 
formed, or similar piles of ice formed along 
the edges of smaller free-floating floes, or the 
piles of ice that are formed by the pieces of 
pack ice that get heaped upon each other are 
known as "Hummocky ice" or simply "Hum- 
mocks." 

This irregular conglomeration freezes together 
again almost immediately if it is winter, and 
indeed it needs very tempestuous sea and 
weather conditions to break up the solid con- 
tinuous floe in winter. The usual time of 
break-up is in the spring, when with rising 
temperatures the sea ice is becoming rotten. 

"Brash ice" is ice that Is usually met with 
on the outskirts of the pack. It is the remnant 
of the fray, being composed of a chaotic col- 



62 POLAR EXPLORATION 

lection of small subangular pieces from a few 
feet in diameter to an inch or two, which have 
been broken off all kinds of larger pieces during 
their battle with the wind and sea and with 
one another. 

In the autumn, especially with the increas- 
ingly stormy weather, the pack ice is jammed 
up together. Irregular pieces of all sizes and 
shapes are huddled together: fragments of the 
new floe of the previous year, fragments of 
hummocky ice, fragments of ice that have 
been thickened by the frosts of two or three 
winters, fragments of over-ridden floes, bergy 
bits broken off icebergs, and brash ice. All 
this ice, each piece different from its neighbour, 
is driven together by the wind and sea, and 
is formed into "streams" of ice, which always 
lie at right angles to the wind and which may 
be many miles in length. Loose pieces of ice 
in the open sea, on the weather side of these 
"streams," are driven before the wind more 
quickly than the stream itself, and are ulti- 
mately driven into the stream and form part 
of it. Pieces on the lee side, however, do not 
readily get driven off, as they are protected 
from wind and sea by the whole breadth of 
the stream, thus the stream increases in size. 
The stream which lies farthest to windward 
drives faster and is driven on to the stream 
under its lee. Stream joins stream, and as 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 63 

the storm increases we have a formidable 
"body of ice" many miles in width as well 
as breadth. This pack drives on and on, 
resistless and all-conquering, until it is checked 
in its steady career by meeting another solid 
pack, or by the land, or, in the Antarctic, by 
one of those giant bergs. Confusion arises; 
the ice piles itself high up on the land — great 
heaps of even 20 or 30 feet high being formed. 
Here it may remain for many a year before 
it is jBnally dissipated. I have seen this occur 
more than once. If it is driven against the 
vertical cliff of an Antarctic berg or against 
the face of a barrier like the Ross Barrier, it 
will curl up the face of the cliff and fall back 
again upon itself in a confused heap. If a ship 
is between it and the land, the ship will be 
hurled ashore and no human effort can do 
anything to avert such a disaster. This has 
frequently happened. In recent times, the Alert 
was driven ashore with the pack at Rawlings 
Bay in Kennedy Channel, in 1876, and the 
Stella Polaris at Teplitz Bay, in Franz Josef 
Land, in 1899. 

A ship may be lying against a floe, perhaps 
fastened to a land floe, when the pack drives 
down upon it and it is caught; or, more deadly 
still, between two floes, when the pack drives 
down upon the outer one, drives it on, and 
the ship is crushed to matchwood between 



64 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the two, unless — as happened with the Scotia 
off Coats Land — she is so constructed that 
when the "nip" comes she rises to it, and is 
heaved out on the top of the ice, the floe and 
pack driving under her, leaving her high and 
dry, but safe and sound. Nothing can stop 
the oncoming pack except the land itseK or 
a change of wind or tide. Sometimes the pack 
moves onwards even in fine weather ; this 
means that there has been wind not very far 
off which has set the distant pack moving, 
its motion being transmitted to the entire body 
of ice. 

With the luUing of wind comes a change. 
The ice which has been forced together opens 
up, lanes of calm water appear and smaller 
channels, tUl every piece of ice is more or 
less separated from its neighbour. The scene 
is altogether changed. As the white ice floats 
in the clear blue waters, one can scarcely 
reahse that these same elements were not long 
since playing such a very different role. Now 
aU this loose pack will with the advent of cold 
wintry weather be frozen together, the lanes 
of water will be covered once more with young 
or bay ice. Wind and weather may pack it 
closer together, the plastic new ice giving way 
mth the old ice embedded in its matrix. The 
whole becomes a solid floe, and many floes 
unite and form great "fields" of ice. This 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 65 

field ice is more formidable than the fields and 
floes of new ice that are formed during a single 
winter, and which during the following summer 
are known by polar voyagers as "one-year 
ice." At the beginning of winter they may 
show a thickness of possibly five or perhaps 
ten feet, and in places there will be even 
thicker pieces. Then comes a whole winter's 
intense frost, snow falls and adds to the weight 
and thickness, and when this ice breaks up 
the following spring we have a really formida- 
ble pack to encounter. When such pack ice 
is not very open, but still open enough for a 
protected ship to work its way through, the 
ship has to be handled with the greatest care 
even when navigating through it in fine weather. 
This ice cannot be charged indiscriminately 
like one-year ice, and one must be able to 
distinguish between one piece of ice and 
another. This can only be done by one who 
has had many years of experience of polar 
ice-navigation. 

One piece, a heavy-looking mass, may be 
charged and will be shattered ; another, a 
wise ice-master will avoid charging because 
he knows it is of steely hardness and that his 
ship will make no impression upon it. A 
careful ice-master never touches a piece of 
ice if he can avoid doing so at any time, in 
spite of his stout ship, the full strength and 



66 POLAR EXPLORATION 

power of which is needed when he is forced 
to work his way through tight ice and heavy 
ice, through which a novice would never 
dream a ship could pass. A good ice-master 
will nose his ship through ice that would 
seem to one without experience navigating 
amongst it absolutely impenetrable, and he 
will go through narrow lanes that are not as 
broad as the beam of his ship, first getting 
the starboard bow of the ship against an 
obstinate heavy piece and working it away 
in among its fellows and then pushing another 
piece similarly aside with the port bow. Then 
the ship is brought to a standstill with the 
engines going full speed, till bit by bit one 
sees a heavy floe beginning to rotate, and 
finally, by its motion and momentum, clearing 
a way, through which the good ship steams 
ahead. Now possibly comes a difficult place : 
two heavy floes have met at two points and 
there is open water beyond ; screwing the 
ship is of no avail, the engines are stopped 
and reversed when the order of "go astern" 
is given. Then she charges full speed at the 
"neck of ice," and when the shock comes 
trembles from stem to stern, the mast and 
yards shake violently and the crew are almost 
thrown off their feet, but there is no visible 
effect on the ice. This operation is repeated 
a second and a third time, and the narrow 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 67 

neck of ice between the two floes shows signs 
of cracking. Once more astern ! Once more 
full speed ahead ! The ice shivers, the neck 
breaks, and the gallant ship is in the open 
water that she has fought so hard to reach. 

But it may happen that the task is hope- 
less, that too much valuable coal would be 
spent to accomplish the breaking of such a 
neck between two floes, and in that case the 
ship retreats and goes round the end of the 
floe instead. Or, if that seems of no avail, 
the ice-anchor is dropped over the ship's 
bows and she is made fast to the floe. There 
she waits, the skipper takes a meal and perhaps 
a sleep while his trusted mates watch develop- 
ments. A change of tide or wind, perhaps 
three or four hours later or perhaps twenty- 
four hours later, causes the ice to slacken, and, 
without any effort, the ship steams through 
what was only a short time before an impene- 
trable part of the pack. Long experience of 
ice, good judgment, cool-headedness, and 
indomitable patience are the leading qualities 
of a good ice-navigator. 

In the Arctic Regions the floes and pack 
ice are essentially the same as in the Antarctic 
Regions, except that there is more snow on 
the floes, and consequently also on the pack, 
in the Antarctic Regions. In the Arctic Regions 
the snow on the floes is not only less, but is 



68 POLAR EXPLORATION 

more consolidated and firm enough to walk 
upon ; the snow is often very soft on the 
Antarctic floes. In the summer of 1892 and 
1893, when cruising in Erebus and Terror Gulf, 
I sank to my knees when walking on the floes 
or pack, and the sealers often had hard work 
in dragging the skins of the slaughtered seals 
to the water's edge. The amount and softness 
of the snow doubtlessly vary in different years 
and different places, but there is, as a rule, more 
and softer snow on the floes in the south than 
in the north. 

In summer it is warmer in the Arctic than 
the Antarctic, and the sun melts pools on the 
surface of the floes and pack. In this greater 
surface-melting the snow layer is diminished 
greatly during the summer months in the 
Arctic. I never met with pools of water on 
Antarctic pack ice, though such may occur. 
These pools of water on the ice in the Arctic 
Regions are in most cases composed of fresh 
water, so much so that when there is a con- 
siderable pool conveniently situated a whaler 
or exploring ship will fasten the ship on to the 
piece of pack or floe with her ice-anchors, and 
will, by means of the hose and pump, or by 
buckets, fill up the fresh-water tanks. This 
water makes perfect drinking water, far finer 
than can be got in any seaport. To know 
that there is always in readiness a perfect 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 69 

supply of the raost excellent fresh water is 
one of the greatest boons to ships navigating 
in the Arctic Regions, and a luxury which is 
forbidden to ships navigating in other seas. 
In the Antarctic, since one seldom or never 
meets with such pools, one has to pick out a 
nice old hummocky piece of sea ice or a bergy 
bit that has been chipped off one of the great 
bergs, and take some boat-loads of this ice 
on board. The ice is put into large tubs or 
barrels, and steam is blown through. It rapidly 
melts, and is led away into the ship's tanks 
and makes most excellent water. There is 
no excuse for a ship having bad drinking water 
on board in the Polar Regions. Through the 
entire winter in Franz Josef Land in 1896 and 
1897, at our encampment at Cape Flora, we 
had a huge barrel inside the house not far off 
from the stove. Every morning after break- 
fast, it was regularly filled with compact blocks 
of consolidated snow that were quarried out 
of neighbouring gulKes. This snow kept melt- 
ing all day and night, and there was thus a 
constant supply of good water available. But 
during the wintering of the Scottish National 
Antarctic Expedition, when the Scotia was 
frozen in Scotia Bay for eight months, sea 
ice was used for this purpose. A good old 
hummocky piece of ice would be selected by 
an officer, and then at seven o'clock every 



70 POLAR EXPLORATION 

morning all hands would man two or three 
sledges, taking with them picks and ice-drills, 
and would bring several loads of beautifully 
clear blocks of ice back to the Scotia. A pile 
of this was made in a secure place on deck, 
and a large copper cauldron in the galley was 
continuously kept full of beautifully pure fresh 
water from the melting of this ice. 

Be it specially noted that during the whole 
of this time we used sea ice for drinking, 
cooking and washing, and that fresh water 
was obtained from it with not the slightest 
taste of salt. The water was like "soft water"; 
when mixed with soap it made a good lather. 
Though it is interesting to note that when a 
delicate chemical test was performed with 
nitrate of silver, a slightly milky appearance 
showed itself in the water, demonstrating that 
there was actually an infinitely small amount 
of salt present, this was quite insufiicient to 
be detected by taste. One very good criterion 
of the purity of this water was that it made 
excellent tea, and if anything is absolutely spoilt 
by the presence of salt, the subtle flavour of 
good tea suffers first. The absence of salt 
in ice that is formed from the freezing of salt 
water has been the subject of long and most 
important investigations by Mr. J. Y. Buchanan 
(Ice and its Natural History, Royal Institution, 
May 8, 1908), who has established that the 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 71 

crystals formed in freezing a non-saturated 
saline solution are pure ice, the salt from which 
they cannot be freed belonging to the adhering 
brine, and that the freezing-point of water 
is lowered by the presence of salt or other 
foreign matter dissolved in it. Thus it may 
be said that, in nature, ice never melts and 
water never freezes at exactly 32° F. The 
melting-point depends on the medium and on 
the pressure to which the ice is subjected. If 
the pressure is constant it varies with the nature 
of the medium ; if the nature of the medium 
is constant it varies with the pressure. 

The reader is now able to distinguish the 
different species of ice met with in polar seas. 
The chief fact to be noted is that, in these seas, 
we meet with two kinds of ice, the one having 
its origin in the sea and the other on the land 
or in the air. The former has the lower melting- 
point of the two and melts first. While it is 
melting it takes all the heat available and so 
preserves the fresh-water ice, which melts after 
all the salt-water ice is gone. In old hummocky 
ice this process of purification has been going 
on intermittently whenever the weather was 
warm enough. I trust I have made these 
matters plain, but it is impossible by words 
to give a true idea of the marvellous colour 
and beauty of the ice in polar seas, or of its 
irresistible power when driven hither and thither 



72 POLAR EXPLORATION 

by sea and wind. There can be no more terrific 
experience than a storm in a li\dng polar pack. 
No human power is of any avail in resisting 
the combined onslaught of wind, sea, and 
heavy ice. 

Yet I know no scene more wonderful and 
more stimulating than one of those brilliant 
sunny days in fine weather in the pack either 
in the north or the south. The dazzHng ice 
shines like brilliants in the sun. Seals and 
penguins on the ice bask in the sun or play 
around pieces of pack ice, in and out, and over 
and imder "tongues," in the intensely clear 
and often intensely bright blue water. In the 
south small shrimphke creatures (Euphausia), 
and in the north the midget polar cod, can 
be seen darting about in and out of the honey- 
combed ice tongues projecting under water 
from almost every piece of pack ice, probably 
sustaining themselves on diatoms and other 
algae that are there too, and which stain the 
pure ice with a rusty brown colour near the 
surface of the sea. Snowy petrels, cape pigeons, 
and Wilson's stormy petrel in the south, and 
ivory gulls, kittiwakes and burgomaster guUs 
in the north fly gaily in the blue sunlit sky, 
speckled with thin wisps and flakes of cirrus 
clouds. Penguins in the south and guillemots 
and puffins in the north dart like torpedoes 
in the narrow lanes of water, only coming to 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 73 

the surface for a breath. Every living thing 
seems bright and gay, stimulated by the 
brilliant conditions of the weather, which 
seems to throw crispness and life into the 
very ice itself, and makes the saddest think 
that there is joy in living. 

Then the scene changes, as the sun, skirting 
the horizon, paints the white ice world with 
colour, with tints that are absolutely beyond 
conception if you have not seen them, and 
that no Rusldn can describe. These beau- 
tiful scenes — so soft and so delicate — produce 
impressions that can never be obliterated ; 
different altogether from the effect produced 
by the brilliant scene described above. Sooth- 
ing — not stimulating ! Making one think of 
the world as kind and gentle, recalling the 
past, picturing the future. Making one think 
what a lonely unit one is in this world; making 
one compassionate and sympathetic to one's 
fellow men. 

The cold grey scene depresses the spirit. 
The air is motionless, the sea of oily glassiness, 
and a dull whitish grey mantle of fog or mist 
hides everything from view, except the ship's 
deck and a few pieces of white ice near by, 
resting in dull grey water, fading away indefi- 
nitely in the mist. It is a time of inaction : 
there is no object to go in one direction or 
another : nothing can be seen ahead. Some- 



74 POLAR EXPLORATION 

times several days of this weather continue, 
causing forced inaction, and one feels as if the 
rest of one's life was to be spent in this cold 
grey mantle. But there is a thinning of the 
mist ; a gleam of the hidden sun ; and a 
fog-bow subtly spreads its fairy ring upon the 
evanescent mist, which folds itself up in rolls 
and vanishes, and once more there is a brilliant 
world of sparkling sunshine. 

In the Antarctic Regions almost all the ice 
floating in the sea, whether land or sea ice, 
is covered at sea-level with a light wash of 
yellowish brown or yellow ochre. The bergs 
are coloured by it as well as the pack ice, 
where the ice is lapped by the sea. When a 
ship charges against a piece of one-year pack 
ice, the ice is easily broken and often breaks 
not only vertically, but horizontally. The 
horizontal fracture occurs at about sea-level, 
and there is revealed a continuous layer of 
this ochreous ice. On examination it is found 
that the coloration is due to the presence of 
several species of diatoms, all actively living. 

If the reader recalls the colour of a polar 
bear, he will know that the colour of its coat 
is yellow and not white. The coat varies, 
in fact, from being very nearly white at the 
end of winter and early spring when it is in 
its finest condition. The bear-hunters well 
know this, several times the price being obtained 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 75 

for a winter skin than for one at the end of 
summer, when it is actually brownish yellow. 
This yellowness is more marked when the bear 
is in his natural surroundings of white ice, and 
at j5rst sight seems anything but a protective 
coloration. Yet when an old Arctic voyager 
shouts "A bear !" younger hands will look 
a while before they see the heavy monster a 
couple of hundred yards off on a floe, and it 
is not easy, at first, to account for this, until 
looking across the great expanse of white one 
sights another bear, and keeps on seeing 
imaginary bears for a long time. The old 
veteran smiles and simply says, "Yellow ice." 
Then the novice easily accounts for his wrong 
conclusion, and finds that there are patches 
of yellow ice all over the floe just the colour 
of a polar bear's coat, lighter in spring when 
daylight has just returned and when winter 
snows and frosts still hold, darker in summer 
like the bear's dirty summer coat. I remember 
an incident on board the Windward in 1896, 
in the Barents Sea. All hands were on the 
poop deck on a Sunday afternoon while the 
veteran mate was conducting a short service. 
Short as the service was, our mate appeared 
unduly anxious to get it over, until, with a 
final effort, he finished — for-ever-and-ever-Amen- 
there's-a-bear ! The old boy had seen the bear 
shortly after the beginning of the reading till 



76 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the animal was within a hundred yards of a 
congregation of twenty-five men, whose eyes, 
it must be confessed, wandered from the reader 
more than once, but not one of whom had seen 
the bear though he was in full view. The 
change of scene need not be described in this 
place, but before the bear was within thirty 
yards of the ship, he lay a victim to the devout 
mate and his congregation. Yellow ice was 
the explanation! 

Now if some of this ice be collected and 
melted, a yellowish deposit is left, which on 
microscopic examination is found to be com- 
posed mainly of diatoms. These diatoms and 
other algae spread themselves over the entire 
surface of Arctic sea ice, and the yellow patches 
indicate specially favourable growing-places for 
them. The distribution of these Arctic diatoms 
is somewhat different from that of those on the 
Antarctic ice. In the Arctic they are more 
on the surface, while in the Antarctic they are 
confined more or less to a thin lamina at sea- 
level, above which lies the remnant of the winter 
snow. In fact, the diatoms of Arctic ice are 
altogether different species from those of 
Antarctic ice. And while diatoms have nothing 
to do with bears, it is quaint to notice that in 
the Arctic Regions the yellow ice patches hide 
the polar bear from vision ; in the Antarctic 
regions, where the yellow diatom material is, 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 77 

as a rule, covered with white snow, there are 
no bears to benefit by being lost among 
yellowish patches of their own colour. Later 
on I will say more about bears : just now let 
us remember their wonderful resemblance to 
the yellow diatom patches on the Arctic floes. 

The diatoms of the Arctic floes and pack 
ice are also otherwise interesting. Certain 
species and varieties of diatoms found on the 
Greenland pack, which drives southward down 
the east coast of Greenland, are identical to 
those found near Behring Strait, and this was 
one of the reasons that made Nansen confident 
that the Fram would drift across the polar 
basin from the Siberian Islands to the Green- 
land Sea. 

Now all these diatoms that have been 
referred to are distinctly associated with 
sea-water ice, and according to Cleve the 
Arctic ones "take their origin from salt 
water," and not from the land. In Antarctic 
ice the diatoms are all marine forms : but they 
probably live in the sea water permeating the 
ice in the lamina, which occurs in the pieces 
of pack ice at sea-level, below the surface 
snow, since those floating freely in the Ant- 
arctic seas appear to be different species from 
those found in this lamina. 

On the surface of the sea, in all parts of 
the world, diatoms and other algae occur, and 



78 POLAR EXPLORATION 

sometimes in such dense masses as to colour 
the sea. Scoresby (Arctic Regions, i, p. 176) 
noted that in the Greenland Sea the colour 
of the water was in places nearly grass-green. 
In the North Atlantic Ocean, in the spring of 
1893, I saw bands of brilliant emerald green, 
like green meadows stretching for miles over 
the otherwise bright blue sea. And in the 
South Atlantic the Scotia passed through sim- 
ilar bands of a bright orange colour. These 
orange bands were fully thirty feet wide, and 
stretched several miles in length, and Dr. 
Rudmose Brown found they were composed 
of a gelatinous scum consisting chiefly of 
microscopic algae (Trichodesmium) closely allied 
to diatoms. It is interesting to note that in 
this scum were numbers of Portuguese men-of- 
war, jelly-fish, swimming-bells, and crustaceans, 
and many other forms of animal life. 

I make special mention of these remarkable 
occurrences because it is quite plain that all 
these animals were there dependent directly 
or indirectly on these unicellular algae ; some 
of the animals were feeding on the algae 
themselves, others were preying on those 
very animals which had become luscious with 
the good pasture they had fed upon, and these 
in their turn were devoured by their larger 
and more rapacious brethren. Why the diatoms 
were there is a more puzzling question, but there 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 79 

must have been sufficient nitrogenous and other 
food material to make them thrive so well — ^pos- 
sibly the excreta or rotting carcase of a whale ! 

Now in the Antarctic seas, especially during 
my cruise in 1892 and 1893, I have recorded 
in my diary day after day such entries as 
these : "sea dirty green" ; "sea dirty brown" ; 
"sea dirty olive-brown" ; "brownish green 
sea" ; "olive-brown sea" ; "sea green" ; "water 
olive-green colour," and so on. When the 
silk tow-net was put over, it was quickly 
filled with a gelatinous mass, which adhered 
persistently to the silk, and which, even after 
thorough washing, blocked up the fine meshes, 
which could not be washed clear of it. On 
examination I found this slimy mass to be 
composed of Corethron cryophyllum and other 
diatoms. 

Like the yellow bands of algae in the South 
Atlantic Ocean, the immense quantity of 
diatoms and other algse floating in the polar 
seas doubtlessly forms the basis of the enor- 
mous abundance of animal life there, from 
the small copepods and euphausia to the 
innumerable birds, seals, and giant whales. 
The nature of this discoloration of Arctic 
waters was shown by the late Dr. Robert 
Brown (Transactions, Botanical Society, Edin- 
burgh, vol. ix, 1867) to be due to the presence 
of enormous numbers of diatoms, among 



80 POLAR EXPLORATION 

which lives a wealth of animal life, including 
medusoids, small crustaceans, and especially 
"winged" gastropods (Clio). There are such 
quantities of these diatoms that their siliceous 
skeletons, which are of a most indestructible 
character, form a great ring of deposit known 
as diatom ooze at the bottom of the deep 
southern ocean, all round the South Polar 
Regions. Deep-sea deposits will be considered 
in due course, but at present I wish to call 
attention to a remarkable fact, namely, that 
the distribution of the diatoms on the surface 
is different from their distribution on the 
bottom. The maximum occurrence of diatoms 
in the surface waters is south of 60° S., whereas 
the maximum occurrence of diatoms at the 
bottom is in about 51° and 52° S. This is 
doubtless due to strong undercurrents running 
in a northerly direction, which carry the del- 
icate skeletons northwards as they sink down- 
wards towards the depths. This rain of diatom 
ooze must form food for minute forms of animal 
life, which in their turn fall a prey to larger 
animals living in intermediate and great depths. 
The diatoms of the Polar Regions, however, 
are not all marine forms. I have examined 
hundreds of land forms in the Arctic Regions, 
especially during my wintering in 1896 and 
1897 in Franz Josef Land. Doubtless, also, 
there are species of diatoms that belong to 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 81 

Antarctic lands. "On several occasions, nota- 
bly on December 18th and 20tli, 1892, I saw 
bergs which were fringed with pale brown 
streaks, like a vein apparently sandwiched in 
their main mass," and I beheve that this 
coloration was due to diatoms or some other 
forms of algae. This observation refers to tops 
of bergs that were possibly 150 feet above sea- 
level, and which had not been overturned. 
The tops being inaccessible, it was impossible 
to get a specimen. But I have seen similar 
coloration on land ice in the north. 

One of the most remarkable instances of 
coloration of ice and snow on the land is what 
is known as "red snow," which is due to a 
blood-red microscopic alga known as Sphce- 
rella nivalis. I have seen acres of ice and snow 
red with this alga in Prince Charles Foreland, 
and other parts of Spitsbergen, as well as in 
Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, and 
on one occasion we found small patches at 
Scotia Bay in the South Orkneys. I have not 
seen it on other Antarctic lands I have visited, 
and am not aware that other explorers, except 
Dr. Charcot, who saw it in Western Graham 
Land, and Mr. Priestly, have recorded its 
presence. Mr. James Murray, who accom- 
panied Sir Ernest Shackleton, writes to me 
saying : "I never saw red snow, but our 
geologist. Priestly, saw the snow smeared with 



82 POLAR EXPLORATION 

red (some 30 or 40 miles from our camp). He 
collected some, but abandoned his specimens 
while saving his life after being carried away 
on a floe. In a lake close by was our now 
familiar red rotifer, and he suspected it caused 
the red snow. Certainly it could do so, if the 
water swarming with rotifers were blown out 
over the snow during a gale ; they would not 
be killed by the cold. I find that Agassiz's 
red snow from the Alps contained red rotifers, 
probably the same kind." Lagerheim also 
reported finding rotifers in red snow in Nica- 
ragua. It is quite clear, however, that it does 
not occur so frequently in the south as it does 
in the north, probably mainly owing to the 
higher summer temperatures that occur in the 
north. The red snow alga is not confined to 
ice and snow, and I do not consider that ice 
and snow is its chief habitat. Mr. George 
Murray, late of the British Museum, told me 
that he had known of this alga in the cistern 
of a London house. If one examines the 
dried-up shallow ponds and pools scattered all 
over Arctic lands in the late summer, when their 
water supply fails owing to lack of melting 
snow, one often finds the whole bottom of such 
ponds covered with a dark reddish-brown scum, 
which dries up into a sort of skin, covering 
all the ground and wrapping itself round every 
stone. On examination this is found to be 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 83 

composed mainly of SphoBrella nivalis. This 
red scum appears to thrive especially where 
such pools have been enriched in nitrogenous 
matter by water which has run down the rocks 
and taluses where great numbers of birds resort 
for nesting. It is often found that a glacier 
or snow-patch is coloured red when water flows 
over it from rocks where birds are nesting, 
and the well-known Scottish Arctic explorer 
Lament, who has so ably depicted many an 
Arctic scene and incident, has ascribed the 
colour as being due to the droppings of the 
rotge, or little auk, which are, as he points out, 
of blood-red colour. But I have examined such 
patches of red snow and ice microscopically, 
and have found the redness due to the presence 
of the red snow alga. It is certain, however, 
that the droppings of the rotge will so enrich 
the water with nitrates that the red alga, which 
is growing plentifully, though invisibly, on 
the black rocks and ground, thrives exceedingly 
and is carried, and lives and grows on the melt- 
ing surface of the snow or glacier ice. I have 
seen glaciers coloured green and black as well 
as red. The green colour is certainly due to 
green algse, and the black, in certain cases, I 
have found to be due to fragments of desiccated 
lichen, fragments which do not appear to be 
growing on the ice but are there just as any 
other dust might be. 



84 POLAR EXPLORATION 

From this it will be seen that sea ice especially, 
and even the surface of glacier ice is swarming 
with Hfe, and is by no means so sterile as it 
is usually thought to be. Bacteriological ex- 
amination has demonstrated that the air of 
the Polar Regions is sterile, but under natural 
conditions in the Polar Regions, as in other 
regions, we may lay down a general law, and 
say — Where there is water there is life ! It 
matters not whether this water be frozen with 
all the rigour of a polar winter, subjected even to 
over one hundred degrees of frost (F.). Melt 
this ice, whether fresh or salt, and life will be 
found. In Franz Josef Land I melted out 
solidly-frozen pieces of wet moss and soil, that 
had been subjected to a temperature of — 45° 
F. or 77 degrees of frost, and as soon as they 
were melted myriads of animals and plants 
began "to live, and move, and have their 
being," after a death-like winter sleep. Many 
algas and even the mosses themselves continued 
life where they had suddenly stopped active 
living with the onrush of the winter frost. 
They had remained dormant during several 
winter months, and now active life suddenly 
began again. Innumerable wheel animalcules 
(Rotifera) and water-bears (Tardigrada) once 
more began to move and live, and in one case 
a small nematode worm that had e^'idently 
been on the point of laying its eggs when over- 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 85 

taken by the frost months previously, began 
to lay them as soon as it had melted out, and 
continued its life as if nothing had happened 
during this long period of sleep. The researches 
of Mr. James Murray in the Antarctic Regions 
have since demonstrated the same phenomena, 
and he has further demonstrated that the Ant- 
arctic rotifers, after being frozen and melted, 
and then dried, can be subjected to the tem- 
perature of boiling water for a short time and 
yet continue to live. 

The preservation of wooden crosses on old 
graves in Spitsbergen and other parts of the 
Arctic Regions as well as the remnants of wooden 
houses three centuries old, to say nothing of 
much of the driftwood which must have been 
left high and dry many centuries ago, is a strik- 
ing piece of evidence of the sterility of the 
Arctic Regions from bacteria. The time will 
certainly come when a country like Spitsbergen 
and other parts of Polar Regions will be utilized 
as sanatoria, at least for the summer months. 
Concerning the bacterial sterility of the atmos- 
phere, we have the striking facts that, under 
ordinary conditions, it is not possible to "catch 
cold" in Polar Regions, and that every germ 
disease is checked. A person who has a ten- 
dency to rheumatism in Britain or any similar 
country will not be attacked by rheumatism 
(unless possibly he is a very chronic rheumatic 



86 POLAR EXPLORATION 

subject) in the Polar Regions, though he may 
be night and day in a wet camp, continually 
soaked. It is possible to take a pleasant short 
sleep, if one is sufficiently tired, on soft slushy 
snow on a glacier in an exposed position and 
to be refreshed and to suffer no ill effects what- 
ever despite a thorough soaking ; you may 
get chilly, but you will not "catch cold," or 
get pneumonia and the like. Infectious fevers 
are practically unknown well within the Polar 
Regions, unless possibly contracted in a dirty 
shop or a filthily-kept house, and even then 
it is more than likely that no fever would be 
contracted during the winter months. Gen- 
erally speaking we may say germ diseases are 
unknown well within the Polar Regions. People 
die of old age, organic troubles, such as various 
forms of heart disease, and by accident ; not 
from germ diseases. Convalescents from serious 
illnesses rapidly recover, and get renewed 
health, such as they have never enjoyed before, 
and wounds heal effectively and with rapidity. 
Payer, speaking of Dr. Borgen's terrible wounds, 
says : "The first operation was upon the cabin 
table. And here we may briefly notice the 
singular fact that, although he had been carried 
more than 100 paces with his skull almost laid 
bare, at a temperature of — 13° F., his scalp 
healed so perfectly that not a single portion was 
missing ;" and Dr. Borgen himself says, "Nor 



SEA ICE AND COLORATION 87 

during the process of healing, which progressed 
favourably, did I experience the smallest pain" 
{The German Arctic Expedition of 1869-70, 
by Captain Koldeway, vol. ii, pp. 408 and 410). 
The darkness of winter is the chief enemy of 
man, as well as man himself. Provided a man 
lives a decently disciplined life there is no more 
healthy place in the world than the Polar 
Regions. It is the invariable experience of 
every well-organised polar expedition that the 
individuals increase in bodily health. Outside 
accidents, certain forms of heart disease have 
been about the only cause of death, and in these 
cases the trouble was probably present in its 
initial stages before the person joined the expe- 
dition, when it was difficult to detect, even by 
highly-skilled physicians ; in such cases the 
patients probably could not have been saved 
from death even though they had never gone 
to the Polar Regions. It was stated, some 
years ago, that the death-rate of polar expedi- 
tions was less than that of the healthiest town 
in Britain, even including such disasters as the 
Franklin and Greely expeditions. Now, with 
better scientific organisation, the average death- 
rate has in all probability fallen much lower 
than this estimate. 



CHAPTER V 

PLANT LIFE 

Besides bacteria and unicellular algse there 
are other forms of plant life in the Polar 
Regions. Various forms of seaweeds, both large 
and small, were taken by the Scotia naturalists 
when dredging in shallow Antarctic waters. In 
Spitsbergen waters and in the Barents Sea, off 
Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, the 
Scottish expeditions have dredged up great 
quantities of different kinds of seaweed, es- 
pecially laminaria, and after a storm on the 
west coast of Prince Charles Foreland I have 
seen piles of laminaria and other seaweed fully 
5 or 6 feet in height, heaped up above the ordi- 
nary high-water level. This seaweed ultimately 
rotted on the shore or was driven inland by 
the wind. There is one remarkable feature 
of polar shores ; and it is that, except in a few 
very secluded nooks and crannies, no seaweed 
will be found between high- and low-water 
mark, nor in depths of less than a fathom or 
two below low-water mark. 

On examining the rocks on which one would 
expect this seaweed to grow one finds that 



PLANT LIFE 89 

they are very much smoother and more rounded- 
off than the rocks on the shores of warmer seas. 
They are, in fact, quite polished. The reason 
is not far to seek, for to the depth of a fathom 
or so the sea becomes frozen solidly during the 
winter, and when summer comes and the pack 
breaks up, this and even heavier ice is driven 
along the shore and grinds over the rocks, rub- 
bing and polishing them and preventing seaweed 
from growing there. Naturally also, for the 
same reason, one need not expect to find shore 
animals, and, as a matter of fact, shore fauna 
is very scanty in the Polar Regions. There 
may be a few limpets in a relatively deep crack, 
or a few amphipods and a stray fish, but there 
are few hiding-places for them among rocks 
so depleted of weeds. No sessile animal is 
safe from being crushed and scoured off the rocks 
by stranding ice. Even on a sandy shore there 
is little, though there is better chance here, 
especially if it does not shelve steeply. Worms, 
copepods, ostracods and the like may some- 
times be found in abundance on a shallow sandy 
shore, especially if there is some bar or barrier 
which prevents heavy ice being stranded on 
the beach at high water during the short sum- 
Tuer season. 

On the land, plant life may be represented 
by more than diatoms and other algae. But, 
be it noted, land plants have a better chance 



90 POLAR EXPLORATION 

and are far more numerous in the Arctic than 
in the Antarctic Regions. For whereas there 
are about 400 species of flowering plants in 
the Arctic Regions, until Dr. Charcot discovered 
two flowering plants in more than one locality 
on the western coast of Graham Land — a grass, 
Aira antarctica, and a small umbelliferous plant, 
Colobanthus crassifolius var. brevifolius — no 
flowering plant was known to exist in the 
Antarctic Regions with the exception of this 
grass, which was known to be a native of the 
South Shetlands. A considerable number of 
plants, however, occur on some subantarctic 
islands, such as Kerguelen, South Georgia, etc. 
Except these two flowering plants which I have 
mentioned not a single one has yet been found 
on any land in the vicinity of Antarctica or the 
islands immediately adjacent to that continent, 
not even in the South Orkneys, Though grass 
had been reported on these islands, we know 
now that it certainly does not exist. 

The most likely reason for this absence of 
flowering plants is the short Antarctic summer 
with temperatures very much below those of 
the Arctic Regions. In the South Orkneys, 
for instance, in 60° 44' S. the mean summer 
temperature of the three summer months 
(December, January, and February) is below 
freezing-point, viz. 31.7° F. ; and in no month 
does the mean rise to 33° F. ; at Snow Hill, 



PLANT LIFE 91 

Graham Land (64° 24' S.) the mean of January, 
the warmest month, is 30.38° F., while at Cape 
Adare, Victoria Land (71° 18' S.)> the summer 
mean is 30.4° F. 

Comparing these summer temperatures with 
those of the Arctic Regions, it is found that in 
Spitsbergen (79° 53' N.) the mean temperature 
of July (corresponding to January in the south) 
is as high as 41.50° F., and that in Franz 
Josef Land (80° N.) it is 35.6° F. in the same 
month. The mean temperature in Spitsbergen 
for June, July, and August is 37.1° F., and 
even that of the ice-bound King Oscar Land 
in 76° 40' N., 88° 40' W., is 33.35° F. The 
point is, that while the mean temperature of 
the summer months in the Arctic Regions is 
well above freezing-point, viz. 32° F., that of 
the Antarctic Regions is practically always 
below the freezing-point. "This remarkably 
cold Antarctic summer," says Dr. Rudmose 
Brown, "acts in two ways upon plant life : 
firstly, the winter snow lies late on the ground 
— all the later as the summer is a cloudy and 
somewhat sunless period, and December is 
well advanced before the majority of available 
sites are laid bare, while in February the winter 
again begins ; secondly, and this is the chief 
reason, it is doubtful if a flowering plant could 
obtain the requisite amount of heat needed 
for its various life functions even to reach the 



92 POLAR EXPLORATION 

flowering stage, while the maturation of its 
fruit would be next to impossible" ("Antarctic 
Botany," by R. N. Rudmose Brown, Scottish 
National Antarctic Expedition : Scottish Geo- 
graphical Magazine, 1906, vol. xxii. No. 9). 
Another very serious factor against plant life 
in the Antarctic Regions is the presence of 
enormous numbers of penguins on almost every 
available piece of ground on which plants 
could grow. It is only occasional out-of-the-way 
spots, not readily accessible to the sea, and so 
free from penguins, that are available for plant 
growth. On Mossman Peninsula, in Scotia 
Bay, there was one very favourable place, where 
about an acre of rocky ground was covered with 
6 or 8 inches of moss and vegetable soil derived 
from the moss that had grown there for many 
a year. Such mossy grounds, however, are 
very late in losing their winter snow, so that 
if the seeds of flowering plants reached such 
a nidus they would have very little chance, 
even if they germinated, of securing a suffi- 
ciently firm foothold before the summer was 
gone. Owing to a prevalence of north-west 
winds. Dr. Rudmose Brown is of opinion that 
some wind-blown seeds of Fuegian plants may 
reach Graham Land, the South Shetlands, 
and the South Orkneys ; but the absence of 
driftwood on these lands shows that there is 
much less chance of their reaching these lands. 



PLANT LIFE 93 

either by sea or ice, than there is in Arctic 
Regions, where on most shores enormous quan- 
tities of driftwood are stranded year after year, 
so much so that some places have the appear- 
ance of timber yards. 

The absence of land birds, with the solitary 
exception of the Sheath-bill (Chionis), is against 
the transit of seeds, though some petrels, the 
Dominican Black Back Gull, the skuas, and 
the shags may occasionally carry seeds to these 
lands. 

As far as the geographical distribution of 
plants is concerned, Skottsberg and Rudmose 
Brown consider the parallel of 60° S. forms 
a more or less natural limit. (Note how diffi- 
cult it is to give a hard and fast limit for the 
boundary of the Antarctic Regions : the astron- 
omer takes the Antarctic Circle, the botanist 
the 60th parallel of south latitude, and the 
oceanographer the limits of floating ice.) "The 
flora of the Antarctic regions," says Dr. Rud- 
mose Brown, "as thus defined, contains only 
two phanerogams, namely, Aira antarctica 
(Hook. Des.) and Colobanthus crassifolius (Hook, 
f. var. brevifolius, Eng.). The former of these 
has long been known from Antarctic Regions, 
having been collected by Eights about 1820 
at the South Shetlands, and it also occurs on 
Danco Land, but its discovery along with 
Colobanthus crassifolius, by Dr. Turquet, of 



94 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the French Antarctic Expedition at Biscoe 
Bay, Anvers Island, in 64° 50' S., 68° 40' W., 
is very interesting, for this is the most southerly 
record for flowering plants known. Descampsia 
antardica was also found by Dr. Turquet at 
Booth- Wandel Island, 65° 5' S. It is extremely 
probable that further exploration will somewhat 
extend the range of these species." In 1910 
Dr. Charcot's expedition in the Pourquoi Pas? 
found these two flowering plants as far south 
as 68° S. "Ferns are entirely wanting in the 
Antarctic, as was only to be supposed, but 
mosses are relatively abundant, and form almost 
the chief constituent of the flora. Collections 
of these are known from various points around 
the pole, including Graham Land, South Shet- 
lands, South Orkneys, Wilhelm Land and 
Victoria Land, but those from the Atlantic 
and American sides are incontestably the richer, 
no doubt largely because of the nearer prox- 
imity of extra-polar land and consequent 
possibility of migration, but also to some 
extent because that side of the Antarctic 
regions has received more careful and serious 
exploration than any other." Dr. Jules Cardot, 
who has examined the mosses brought back 
by all the recent expeditions, places the total 
number of species at present known at about 
51. Nearly 50 per cent, are endemic, while 
about 23 per cent, are found in Arctic Regions 



PLANT LIFE 95 

as well, but the majority of these are of more 
or less cosmopolitan distribution. Only six 
Antarctic hepatics are known, and only one 
fungus discovered by M. Racovitza of the 
Belgica. 

Lichens predominate though more numerous 
as individuals than species. Various orange- 
coloured species of Placodium even show well- 
marked coloration on precipitous rocks in 
winter. The grey and shaggy Usnea mela- 
xantha, Ach., is more luxuriant than any 
other and produces good "fruits." All but 
one of the South Orkney lichens collected by 
Dr. Rudmose Brown of the Scotia have been 
previously recorded from the Arctic Regions. 
Altogether about 75 per cent, of the Antarctic 
species are also Arctic forms. Twenty-five 
species of marine algse, including five new 
species, were taken by the Scottish Expedition 
in South Orkney waters. Of diatoms I have 
already spoken. Fresh-water algse are almost 
confined to unicellular kinds, but had been 
little studied until Mr. James Murray found 
"abundance of fresh-water algse, including some 
very small diatoms, in ponds, and also in earthy 
deposits, which may have originated in ponds." 

This is a brief summary of all that is known 
regarding the Antarctic flora. It is quite im- 
possible to enter into similar detail regarding 
the Arctic flora on account not only of its pro- 
fusion, as already indicated by the number of 



96 POLAR EXPLORATION 

flowering plants, but also because of the 
enormous amount of investigation that has 
been carried out by very many eminent botanists 
from every civilised nation. The literature of 
Arctic botany fills many shelves. In so much 
detail has Arctic flora been investigated, that 
it is quite a rare thing to record a new species, 
and even regarding distribution there is little 
more to be learnt. The present interest is 
the study of the physiology of Arctic plants, 
and here a beginning has already been made. 
Under these circumstances it is neither neces- 
sary nor desirable to enumerate even in the 
most general way species of Arctic plants nor 
to discuss their distribution more than I have 
done already in the case of the diatoms of the 
Arctic seas and floes. 

But plant life in Arctic lands is a feature of 
such importance that it must not be passed 
by without giving some consideration to it in 
a general way. One striking feature is, that 
no matter how far north the explorer goes, no 
matter how desolate a region he visits, he is 
sure to come across one or more species of 
flowering plants. A poppy, buttercup, or 
saxifrage is almost certain to be met with, and 
of all these the Arctic poppy (Papaver radi- 
catum) is perhaps the most persistent. There 
is no place that I have visited in Spitsbergen, 
Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, or else- 



PLANT LIFE 97 

where, however barren, desolate, and wind- 
swept, where I have not found the Arctic poppy 
growing, stunted it may be, yet growing and 
even flowering ; and, if there exist in the least 
degree slightly more favourable conditions, it 
will grow with great luxuriance and in great 
profusion. Similarly, on the coasts of Green- 
land and on the Arctic islands north of America 
wherever plant life can succeed the poppy is 
to be found. Next to the poppy, the purple 
saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) is probably 
the most hardy Arctic flowering plant, and in 
suitable places may grow in even greater pro- 
fusion than the poppy. I have seen the Fore- 
land Laichs of Prince Charles Foreland in July 
resembling an extensive Scottish moor in Septem- 
ber, one blaze of purple for miles, but purple 
with this saxifrage instead of with heather. 
A yellow buttercup (Ranunculus nivalis) is 
another very common Arctic species growing 
almost anywhere, and very different in ap- 
pearance according to what ground it is growing 
on, and to what extent it is protected from 
wind. Cerastium alpinum is also met with 
everywhere, great masses of white brightening 
the landscapes. Other flowering plants that 
every Arctic traveller is thoroughly familiar 
with are : scurvy-grass iCoclilearia officinalis), 
the sulphur-flowered buttercup {Ranunculus sul- 
■phureus), the little bladder campion {Silene 



98 POLAR EXPLORATION 

acaulis)y several potentillas (P. nivea, P. pul- 
chella, and others), the blaeberry (Empetrum 
nigrum), many saxifrages, notably Saxifraga 
cernua, S. coes-pitosa, S. Hirculus, the rock rose 
{Dry as odopetala), the cotton grass (Eriophorum), 
and last, but not of least importance, the Arctic 
willow (Salix polaris and S. herhacea), which 
often covers acres of ground. Neither must 
we forget the great host of grasses and sedges. 
Few of these plants are endemic to Arctic 
Regions ; they often develop characteristic 
forms or varieties, but most of the species are 
found also in northern Europe, Asia, and 
America. Further south they appear at 
higher altitudes. A few we find on the hill- 
tops of Scotland. There are two ferns in 
Spitsbergen and a few more in other Arctic 
lands, but the Arctic Regions are not favourable 
to fern growth. Of mosses and hepatics there 
are many different species, most of which 
thrive exceedingly well, and the same may 
be said of lichens. Fungi are also quite 
common, especially puff-balls, with their 
"Deadman's snuff." One common feature 
that Arctic and Antarctic mosses and lichens 
exhibit is the infr^uency of any reproduction 
except by purely vegetative means ; by growth, 
in fact, continuous or discontinuous, for as a 
rule they are barren : "fruits" in a state of 
matui'ity are comparatively rare. 



PLANT LIFE 99 

Although there are many barren stretches 
in Arctic lands, especially those regions that 
are open, exposed, and wind-blown, yet even 
on such places stunted desert-like tufts of 
some of the commoner species will be found, 
especially the Arctic poppy and purple saxi- 
frage. These were growing on a narrow strip 
of ground only a few yards long, and at the 
most four or five yards in breadth, on an island 
in Franz Josef Land, north of the 80th degree 
of latitude, that was otherwise completely 
covered with permanent ice and snow. I have 
also found these plants growing on the tops 
of the mountains of Spitsbergen north of the 
79th degree of latitude, at an altitude of more 
than 3,000 feet — as bleak exposed places as 
any on the face of the globe. Give these 
plants the least bit of fair play as regards 
environment — a sheltered glen, or the shores 
of a loch or firth, where there is sufficient 
moisture, plenty of sun, and good soil enriched 
by the water running down from the wonderful 
bird cliffs inhabited by hundreds of thousands 
if not millions of birds, or by the droppings of 
reindeer, musk-oxen, and other animals, and 
a veritable paradise of verdure is produced. 
I have basked in the sun on wide stretches 
of the purple saxifrage, and have wandered 
over meadows green with the Arctic willow, 
and many different species of saxifrage and 



100 POLAR EXPLORATION 

mosses ; I have waded through grass and sul- 
phur-flowered buttercups up to the knee and 
plunged my hands deep into velvet banks of 
rich green and red mosses, while my eyes have 
feasted on a brilliant display of green, white, 
gold, and purple. Other Arctic explorers have 
had the same experiences — Scoresby, in Jame- 
son's Land (71° N.) on the east coast of Green- 
land, says, "the ground was richly dotted 
with grass, a foot in height," and, he continues, 
"more inland, my father, who explored this 
country to a great extent, discovered consider- 
able tracts that might justly be denominated 
greenland, patches of several acres, occurring 
here and there of as fine meadow-land as could 
be seen in England. There was a considerable 
variety of grasses and many other plants in 
a beautiful state" {Journal of a Greenland 
Voyage, by Wm. Scoresby, junior, F.R.S.E., 
1823, p. 214). Li Grinnell Land (79° N.) in 
1875 the British Arctic expedition met with 
"luxuriant vegetation," and in 82° 30' N. Cap- 
tain Markham {The Great Frozen Sea) says, 
"Some of the hills surrounding these lakes 
were beautifully carpeted with the pretty Httle 
purple saxifrage, a Draba, a Potentilla and other 
vnld flowers, while the vaUeys were covered 
with patches of luxuriant vegetation, consisting 
of grasses and delightfiflly soft moss." Speak- 
ing of the island of Waigatz, Colonel Feilden 



PLANT LIFE 101 

says, "Nowhere in the Arctic Regions have I 
seen such wonderful masses of colour ; one 
may wade through acres of blossoming plants 
a foot high, veritable Arctic flower-gardens. . . . 
My words fail, I know, to give any adequate 
description of the immense charm attaching 
to this Arctic flora" ("Visits to Barents and 
Kara Seas, with Rambles in Novaya Zemlya, 
1895 and 1897," by Colonel H. W. Feilden, 
Geog. Journal, April 1898). Again, Conway 
says, "A veritable Arctic garden surrounded 
the tents, for the ground was gay with blos- 
som. There were large patches of Saxifraga 
oppositifolia scattered about like crimson 
rugs. Dry as odopetala and the Arctic poppy 
were as common as buttercups and daisies in 
a meadow. Yellow potentillas (P. verna and 
multifida) added their welcome note of bright 
colour. The Alpine Cerastium was the grace- 
fullest blossom of the company. Then there 
were two Drahas, a Silene, Melandryum 
apetalum, Oxyria reniformis, and a number of 
other plants not yet in flower, besides the 
mosses. It was strange to meet again in this 
remote region so many plants that I had 
found by the glaciers and amongst the crags 
of the Karakoram-Himalaya. Papaver nudi- 
caule, Saxifraga oppositifolia and Saxifraga 
Hirculus climb to a height of 17,000 feet and 
more on the sides of the greatest giants of that 



102 POLAR EXPLORATION 

most wonderful range. Here they all were 
again, as bright, and maintaining themselves 
as happily in the heart of the Arctic Regions 
as on the backbone of Asia" {The First 
Crossing of Spitsbergen, by Sir W. Martin 
Conway, 1897, p. 125). Such quotations could 
be almost infinitely multiplied, for every Arctic 
voyager has been similarly fascinated with 
the wonderful luxuriance and beauty of the 
Arctic flora. 

But besides being a fascinating feature of 
Arctic scenery, vegetation on Arctic lands has 
played and will continue to play a most impor- 
tant role in Arctic exploration. Without it 
the North Polar Regions could not have been 
penetrated so extensively as they have been 
by man, and if greater advantage had been 
taken of it directly or indirectly there would 
not have occurred some of the disasters that 
have marred Polar exploration. As long ago 
as 1671 Martens knew the value of sorrel and 
scurvy-grass in Spitsbergen for human food. 
"I desire," says Martens, "the courteous Reader 
to accept at present of these for Sample to 
shew him that on these rough, barren, and 
cold Mountains, there yet grow some Plants, 
for the Nourishment both of Man and Beast. 
The Herbs grow to their perfection in a short 
time, for in June, when we first arrived in 
Spitsbergen, we saw but very little Green, and 



PLANT LIFE 103 

yet in July most of them were in flower, 
and some of them had their Seeds already 
ripe, whence we observe the length of their 
summer." It is a striking fact, although it 
was recognised two and a half centuries ago 
that Arctic plants afforded "Nourishment 
both for Man and Beast," that more advantage 
was not taken of them and of the "Beasts" 
this rich vegetation also sustained. Without 
this rich Arctic vegetation from lichens onwards 
there could be no musk-oxen, no reindeer, no 
Arctic hares, no lemmings, no owls, no ptar- 
migan, no geese, fewer ducks, no purple 
sandpipers, stints, sanderlings, buntings or any 
other land birds, few insects, and a scarcity of 
other invertebrates. 

With all these animals, which will be con- 
sidered in more detail later on, Arctic lands 
become habitable for the various tribes of 
Eskimos that live and thrive there, and Euro- 
pean races have been able to penetrate parts 
that could not otherwise have been reached 
with means that have been at our disposal up 
to the present time. Without these animals 
the Arctic tundra of Europe, Asia, and America 
could not have been crossed and opened up 
so thoroughly, the coast of Greenland could 
not have been explored except in the most 
meagre way, and the great Archipelago of 
islands — great and small, that stretches towards 



104 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the Pole to the north of our Canadian Do- 
minion — could not have been investigated 
as it has been. 

But not only does all this magnificent supply 
of fresh food from Arctic land animals depend 
on the luxuriant vegetation there, but some 
of the plants are actually adjuncts to the food 
supply, notably scurvy-grass and sorrel, both 
of which are pleasant and healthy vegetables, 
and both of which help to ward off scurvy. 
Lichens have even been used as food for men 
crossing barren wastes where hardly any other 
plant existed, and when animals were not there to 
be hunted or difficult to secure. Franklin, Rich- 
ardson, and Back maintained life by eating 
"an old pair of leather trousers, a gun cover, a 
pair of old shoes with a Httle 'tripe de roche' 
that they succeeded in scraping off the rocks." 

The success of Polar expeditions depends 
not only on selecting a good set of healthy 
men, but also, once the expedition is in the 
field, on maintaining that good health and 
even on improving it. Scurvy has been the 
deadhest enemy of Polar expeditions, whether 
they have been for hunting or for exploration. 
Spitsbergen and other Arctic lands are one 
huge cemetery containing the remains of 
scurvy-stricken men and women who have 
died through ignorance and obstinacy, and even 
within the last few years many hunters have 



PLANT LIFE 105 

died because they have preferred to eat badly- 
cured fish and badly-prepared animal foods, 
instead of feeding on the food that the Almighty 
had placed at the very doors of their miserable 
and filthy huts. 

Half the members of the British Polar Ex- 
pedition of 1875-76 were saturated with scurvy, 
and expeditions as late as those of the Balwna 
(Weddell Sea, Antarctic), 1892-93, Windward 
(Franz Josef Land, Arctic), 1894-97, and the 
Discovery (Ross Sea, Antarctic), 1901-04, were 
all seriously crippled with the appearance of 
that terrible scourge. On shore at Cape Flora 
Dr. Reginald Koettlitz was able to prevent 
scurvy because the leader and staff followed 
his advice and lived chiefly on bear meat and 
guillemots, but, as Dr. Neal has pointed out, 
nearly all the men on board the Windward 
"refused to eat bear meat, but lived on tinned 
provisions, with plenty of tinned vegetables 
and any amount of lime-juice. The whole 
ship's company, except three or four men, had 
scurvy, and those who did not have scurvy 
were the very ones who took bear's meat when- 
ever they could get it. The ship arrived in 
Norway in September 1895, having lost three 
men from scurvy, and with fourteen others 
who would have been dead in a few days if 
they had not reached land." 

For many a year lime-juice has been used 



106 POLAR EXPLORATION 

as a preventive and cure, but doubtlessly the 
best that can be said of it is that it will do no 
harm using it in cases of scurvy, and it may 
or may not be useful in other directions. On 
board the Balcena one ounce of lime-juice was 
regularly served, "according to the act," every 
day to every man on board, and yet, on the 
return voyage to Britain, one and all were more 
or less tainted with scurvy, including one sea- 
man who was very seriously ill, and who was 
receiving fully two ounces of lime-juice a day. 
The Balcena, flying the yellow flag, put in at 
Portland for coal and potatoes, and apparently 
the potatoes, which were ravenously devoured 
by the crew in the raw state when they came on 
board, and which were afterwards copiously 
served out boiled, had the wonderful effect of 
largely obliterating the scurvy before the vessel 
reached Dundee four days later. While as to 
the seaman who was utterly prostrated, and 
who was so ill that he was expected to die any 
day, he so far recovered as to be able to walk 
ashore in Dundee. At the same time the 
Norwegian ship Jason, that did exactly the same 
voyage as the Balasna, had no lime-juice on 
board, and had not the least trace of any scor- 
butic symptoms. 

Dr. William H. Neale, who spent the winter 
of 1881-82 with Mr. Leigh Smith in Franz 
Josef Land, in The Practitioner for June 1896, 



PLANT LIFE 107 

describes how, though the wrecked party "had 
practically nothing to live upon but bear and 
walrus meat for twelve months, there was not 
a drop of lime-juice saved from the ship ; and 
the vegetables were so few that they could not 
be taken into account." Dr. Neale continues, 
"My belief is that our complete freedom from 
scurvy was due to our living in a pure atmosphere 
night and day, and our diet being mainly fresh 
meat with plenty of blood in it. . . . Give me a 
hut on shore and a rifle with easy access of 
game, and I would defy scurvy in the Arctic 
Regions ; but to live on board a ship, to live 
in a hot forecastle or cabin, and to live on tinned 
provisions, is the best means of courting the 
disease." 

We know now, by careful physiological re- 
search and by further experience of well-equipped 
expeditions basing their food equipment on 
the results of our knowledge obtained by these 
investigations, that scurvy is largely, if not 
entirely, due to the presence of injurious pto- 
maines associated with animal food-stuffs, and 
it has been said by an eminent physiologist 
that it is simply a form of chronic ptomaine 
poisoning. A well-equipped Polar expedition, 
where the greatest possible care has been exer- 
cised by the leader, and honestly carried out 
by the contractors, should not, therefore, have 
scurvy on board or on shore at its encamp- 



108 POLAR EXPLORATION 

ments. It must be acknowledged, however, 
that it is very difficult to make absolutely sure 
that all the preserved meat-stuffs on board are 
reliable, expecially as there are scandalous 
contractors, who care nothing for sacrificing 
the health, and even the lives, not only of those 
who penetrate the Polar Regions, but of those 
who journey to other parts of the world, both 
in times of peace and war. 

The great maxim to . follow in Polar ex- 
ploration as regard food suppKes is to live 
as far as possible on the products of the sea 
or land where the work of the expedition lies. 
If the expedition is exploring in the Antarctic 
Regions, let it feed on the excellent flesh of 
the seals and fish which can be got plentifully 
there, and on the eggs and flesh of the innu- 
merable penguins and other birds. If the 
expedition is in the Arctic Regions, let it 
luxuriate in the flesh of the musk-ox, reindeer, 
hare, and ptarmigan ; and let the meat of 
bear, walrus, seal, and guillemot, as well as 
other birds, be utilised, remembering that all 
this "flesh is grass," and let scurvy -grass and 
sorrel be eaten as the natural vegetables of 
the Polar Regions. Tinned foods, if risked at 
all, should be used merely as a variety apart 
from the staple fresh foods above mentioned. 
Then there will be no sign of scurvy. 



CHAPTER VI 

ANIMAL LIFE 

Brief reference has already been made to 
some of the polar animals and their habits, 
but it is necessary to give a more detailed 
account of this aspect of Polar Regions. The 
striking feature of the Antarctic Regions, with 
one partial exception, is the entire absence 
of land vertebrates. There are no land mam- 
mals — no bears, wolves, foxes, or lemmings ; 
no musk-oxen, reindeer, or hares, neither are 
there any land birds with the exception of 
the sheath-bill (Chionis), which is only a 
summer visitor to the shores of most Antarctic 
lands. Sone white-legged sheath-bills, how- 
ever, remained at Scotia Bay all the winter of 
1903, and Sir Joseph Hooker tells me that the 
black-legged sheath-bill remains in Kerguelen 
all the winter. Neither are there any fresh- 
water fishes, as there are practically no rivers 
and only a few pools which are scarcely ever 
free of ice. This striking fact makes inland 
journeys in the Antarctic Regions very much 
more serious business than the inland journeys 
in the Arctic Regions, since every pound of 
109 



110 POLAR EXPLORATION 

food required for a journey has to be carried 
by the explorers. There is no food in the 
interior of Antarctica. There is not a single 
living thing, except possibly a stray lichen 
or moss, which may harbour an insect or two, 
or some microscopical invertebrates and uni- 
cellular algae. 

In the Arctic Regions, on the other hand, 
with the perfect and light equipment that is 
carried nowadays and with the modern and 
accurate long-range firearms, so different from 
those used by Franklin, Rae, Richardson, Back, 
and others, who actually starved with reindeer 
in sight, there is little chance of explorers 
not being able to obtain food supplies. It 
is true there may be difficulty on occasions 
in obtaining food by one's own gun, in certain 
districts, for several days, but it is scarcely 
possible now to be reduced to such extremities 
as Arctic explorers were in the days of Franklin 
and Rae, with their heavy equipment and ' 
primitive firearms. Even as late as the Nares 
expedition of 1875, extraordinary "regulation" 
equipment was carried — great solid sledges, 
massive canteens, heavy ships' boats, etc., 
instead of light sledges, thin aluminium' can- 
teens, canvas kayaks, and the like, which are 
the Polar equipment of the present day. A 
modern Polar explorer marvels at the wonder- 
ful achievements of his predecessors, which 



ANIMAL LIFE 111 

are all the more remarkable when he knows 
that, added to this cumbersome equipment, 
their preserved provisions were such as almost 
certainly to cripple their strength, if not utterly 
to prostrate them with that deadliest of Polar 
enemies — scurvy. 

The most striking of all Polar animals is 
undoubtedly the Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus). 
The resemblance of this remarkable animal 
to its surroundings has already been dealt with ; 
let us now consider other characteristics. The 
habitat of the bear is the sea ice and the sea, 
and not the land. The polar bear is constantly 
wandering about the floes and pack. It is 
a solitary animal usually. If there are two or 
three together, they will be a mother with one 
or two cubs. The bear does not hibern,ate, 
as is commonly supposed, but walks around 
in a desultory manner, examining and sniffing 
at everything. Dr. Koettlitz has pointed out 
that what have been called hibernating holes 
or caves are only ice and snow houses con- 
structed occasionally by the male and female 
for shelter in very bad weather, but usually 
by the female for shelter during her final stages 
of pregnancy and for a little time after the 
birth of her young. The mother and young 
do not appear to stay long in these caves, but 
soon begin again their wandering life. Their 
wanderings seem objectless except for the sake 



112 POLAR EXPLORATION 

of obtaining food. The chief food of the polar 
bear is seals, preferably the floe-rat (Phoca 
fcotidd). A bear has been seen lying stretched 
on its belly at the edge of a floe, watching 
intently the water till a floe-rat coming to the 
surface has put his head out for a breath and 
look out : no sooner had the seal's head ap- 
peared than one fell stroke with the heavy paw of 
the bear landed its prey, stunned, on to the floe. 
During the winter-time, when the sea gets 
more or less frozen up into one continuous 
field of ice, bears are constantly wandering 
about in the vicinity of cracks in the ice, or 
near the breathing-holes which the seals keep 
open all the winter by constantly coming in 
and out of them. It is very doubtful if a bear 
ever catches a seal sleeping ; it is by long and 
patient waiting at a seal's hole, and by strategy 
and stalking that the seal falls a \dctim to the 
bear. The bear's skill as a stalker is well in- 
stanced by an incident that nearly deprived 
Nansen of his companion Johansen, during 
their journey from the Fram to Franz Josef 
Land across the Polar Basin. Before either 
of them or even their two dogs were aware of 
its presence, a bear had felled Johansen by his 
heavy paw. "The bear," says Nansen in his 
Farthest North, "must have followed our track 
like a cat, and, covered by ice-blocks, have 
slunk up while we were clearing the ice from 



ANIMAL LIFE 113 

the lane and had our backs to him. We could 
see by the trail how it had crept over a small 
ridge just behind us under cover of a mound 
by Johansen's kayak. While the latter, with- 
out suspecting anything or looking round, 
went back and stooped down to pick up the 
hauling rope, he suddenly caught sight of an 
animal crouched up at the end of the kayak, 
but thought it was 'Suggen.'" Fancy taking 
a bear for a dog, a couple of yards off ! Yet 
I know how possible this is, having myself at 
various times mistaken a dog, a gull, and a 
flag for a bear ! — "Before he had time to realise 
that it was so big, he received a cuff on the 
ear which made him see fireworks, and then, 
as I mentioned before, over he went on his 
back. He tried to defend himself as best he 
could with his fists : with one hand he seized 
the throat of the animal, and held fast, 
clenching it with all his might. It was just 
as the bear was about to bite Johansen on the 
head that he uttered the memorable words, 
'Look sharp !' The bear kept glancing at me 
continually, speculating, no doubt, as to what 
I was going to do ; but then caught sight of 
the dog and turned towards it. Johansen let 
go as quick as thought and wriggled himself 
away, while the bear gave Suggen a cuff which 
made him howl lustily, just as he does when 
we thrash him. Then Kaifas got a slap on the 



114 POLAR EXPLORATION 

nose. Meanwhile Johansen had struggled to 
his legs, and when I fired had got his gun, which 
was sticking out of the kayak hole. The only 
harm done was that the bear had scraped some 
grime off Johansen's right cheek, so that he 
has a white stripe on it, and had given him a 
sUght wound on one hand ; Kaifas has also 
got a scratch on his nose. Hardly had the bear 
fallen, before we saw two more peeping over 
a hummock a little way off — cubs who, nat- 
urally, wanted to see the result of the maternal 
chase. They were two large cubs." 

I was once similarly stalked by a bear that 
watched its chance for a long time, while I was 
busy attending to some baited traps lowered 
in the sea, through a hole in the ice, three- 
quarters of a mile from the shore where the 
encampment was. Fortunately, by the vigi- 
lance of one of my comrades, Armitage, the bear 
was detected when within a himdred yards 
of his prey, and, finding he was discovered, 
made off. The remarkable swimming powers 
of the bear were exhibited well on this occa- 
sion, for he took to the water and began to 
swim towards an island that was twelve miles 
distant. A bear is, in fact, just as much at 
home in the water as on the ice, and often, if 
it comes to a large pool of water in the floe, a 
bear will swim across rather than take the 
extra trouble of walking round. 



ANIMAL LIFE 115 

Although there have been many narrow 
escapes from polar bears, it is doubtful if there 
is any authentic record of a man being killed 
by a bear. Dr. Borgen, of the German Polar 
Expedition in 1869-70, had perhaps one of the 
most marvellous escapes that has ever been 
recorded. Dr. Borgen was knocked down by 
a bear that seized him by the head in its jaws 
and carried him off. The bear and its victim 
were followed, and the bear ultimately shot. 
Dr. Borgen received a very severe scalp wound, 
as well. as wounds on the arm and hand, from 
which, however, he soon miraculously recovered, 
as already stated. The bear seldom comes to 
the land as long as he can get plenty of seals 
on the sea ice ; he will only come if he knows 
of a short cut across some land or glacier to 
get from one feeding-ground to another, or he 
will come to eat grass as a dog does when he is 
not feeling well. He may also come to land 
if there is a human encampment, being attracted 
by the smell ; and this habit is so well known 
that hunters when ashore or on board a ship 
will burn seal or bear fat, and if there is a bear 
to leeward he is sure to come up to the encamp- 
ment or ship. In this way about 120 bears 
were seen and 69 were shot in Franz Josef Land 
during 1894-97, by the Jackson-Harmsworth 
Expedition. When hungry, a bear will eat 
anything. Koettlitz found seal, grass, seaweed. 



116 POLAR EXPLORATION 

paper, manilla rope yarn, a hard lump of woven 
texture, horse-dung, macintosh sheeting, canvas, 
basaltic pebbles and bear blubber in the stomachs 
of thirty bears he examined. But the bear's 
usual food is seal, and although he will devour 
every part of a seal, his particular fancy is the 
skin and blubber. 

Of land mammals, musk-ox (Ovibos mos- 
cliatus) and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) are 
the most noteworthy and useful to man. The 
musk-ox is specially interesting, being the 
single representative of its genus. It is more 
nearly allied to the sheep than the ox. It is 
about two-thirds of the size of the American 
bison, but its long coat of hair makes it look 
larger. It inhabits the northern parts of the 
Canadian mainland, and the islands to the 
north of Canada as far as Grinnell Land, as 
well as the coasts of Greenland. In prehistoric 
or pleistocene times the musk-ox extended to 
the north-west in Alaska, and at a still earlier 
period, when North America was colder than 
now, the musk-ox ranged as far south as Kansas 
and Kentucky. Musk-ox bones have been also 
found in the frozen soil of Siberia, as far east 
as the Obi. It formerly existed as far south 
as Wurtemburg, while the Pyrenees and Alps 
seem to have marked the southern hmits of its 
range. The skulls have been dredged up from 
the Dogger Bank. Unlike the bear, the musk- 



ANIMAL LIFE 117 

oxen keep in herds, and they are seldom met 
singly. "This herding gives them a better 
chance to defend themselves against their one 
enemy, the arctic wolf." When danger is at 
hand they "always retreat," says Mr. Bieder- 
beek, "to some elevation near by, and upon 
the approach of the enemy they form in a perfect 
line, their heads toward their foe ; or if at- 
tacked, at more than one point, they form a circle, 
their glaring, blood-shot eyes restlessly watch- 
ing the attack." 

Like the bear, they are protected by their 
environment, as a description by Captain Otto 
Sverdrup shows {New Land, vol. i, p. 47). "As 
I was working my way past a sudden bend in 
the valley, I suddenly saw both animals stand- 
ing high up on a steep crag, and within range. 
It was merely by chance that I caught sight 
of them, for the crag was exactly the same colour 
as the animals, and this was the only place in 
the valley of that particular tint. So the polar 
ox, I thought, seeks cover from the prevailing 
tone of his environment, just as does the ptar- 
migan from the stones and juniper in summer, 
and in autumn, after it has changed its colour, 
from the large patches of snow." "Musk-ox," 
says the late Dr. E. L. Moss (Shores of the Polar 
Sea), who has depicted so well many an Arctic 
scene by his pen and brush, "rarely attack, 
and can generally be approached within rifle- 



118 POLAR EXPLORATION 

range with little trouble. Sometimes, however, 
they are unaccountably timid. . . . They seemed 
to take some time to realise that we did not 
belong to their world. But having once made 
up their minds, they showed even more terror 
than wild animals usually do. Each musk-ox 
gave us about two hundred pounds of meat, 
often most excellent, but occasionally tainted 
with the flavour that gives them their name. 
We failed to ascertain the source of this char- 
acteristic. It occurs in both sexes and at all 
ages ; and, moreover, it is not peculiar to the 
musk-ox, for a haunch of reindeer presented to 
us by the governor of Egedesmunde possessed 
the very same flavour." 

The musk-ox has been a most valuable 
asset to polar explorers. Without its exist- 
ence the north and east coasts of Greenland 
could not have been unravelled as they have 
been, nor could exploration have been carried 
on so effectually in the Canadian Arctic 
Archipelago. 

The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) is another 
not only striking but also useful Arctic animal, 
and one of the most widely distributed. 
Some consider there are two species, but that 
matters little just now ; suffice it to say that 
the reindeer is found in almost every Arctic 
land, except Franz Josef Land, where however 
at one time it used to exist, since their horns 



ANIMAL LIFE 119 

have been found there by myself and others. 
Its range extends so far south on the European, 
Asiatic, and American continents that it may 
be regarded as being not only an Arctic but 
also subarctic animal. The reindeer differs 
from all other deer in that both male and female 
have antlers, though those of the female are 
smaller. The genus is distinguished by the 
form and position of these appendages, which 
take their origin immediately over the occipital 
ridge instead of low down in the forehead. 
Another characteristic is the broad-spreading 
hoof, giving a good surface for support on snow 
or bog. The tail is conspicuously white. The 
larger varieties may weigh up to 400 lbs. The 
reindeer proves most valuable nutriment for 
Arctic explorers, and Eskimo, and other Arctic 
tribes; and, like the musk-ox, has constantly 
furthered Arctic exploration, not only as a val- 
uable food supply, but also because its skin 
is one of the most useful articles of clothing. 
Reindeer-skin sleeping-sacks have been an almost 
indispensable part of the equipment of Arctic 
and Antarctic explorers ; the skin of the young 
reindeer is suitable for various articles of clothing. 
The skin of the legs of the reindeer buck are 
made into "j&nnesko," the most useful form of 
winter boots, by treatment for twenty-four 
hours in a strong decoction of birch or similar 
bark. The skin of the hind legs is used for the 



120 POLAR EXPLORATION 

soles and sides, and that of the fore legs for 
the upper leather, the hair being left outside. 
Those boots are worn with the fur outside, 
and may be filled inside with a sedge or 
"sennegroes." They are very suitable both 
for ski and Canadian snow-shoes. 

The northern races of Europe and Asia have 
domesticated the reindeer. The standard of 
wealth of the Lapp is according to the number 
of reindeer he possesses. It is his aU in all. 
The reindeer transports his household and 
himseK from one place to another ; it suppHes 
him with milk and meat ; it clothes his family 
and himseK. Its bones form needles, and its 
sinews threads. Its bones also make spoons 
and other useful articles of equipment. All 
and every part of a reindeer— living or dead — 
is indispensable to him. For food the reindeer 
is never at a loss, even fending for itself when 
winter snow covers the ground. With its hoof 
the reindeer scrapes away the snow and dis- 
covers underneath the reindeer moss — a lichen 
which forms a favourite food. 

It is pitiable to see this graceful and useful 
animal ruthlessly slaughtered, as it has been 
in Spitsbergen during recent years, and it is 
discreditable to relate that a person of exalted 
position has been one of those who have set so 
deplorable an example. Norwegian hunters are 
also greatly to blame — not even hesitating 



ANIMAL LIFE 121 

to use strychnine and other poisons, and thus 
decimating not only reindeer but also bears, 
foxes, birds, and other a,nimals, and transform- 
ing fertile Spitsbergen into a barren cemetery. 

It is impossible to describe the Arctic 
mammals species by species, and it is indeed 
difficult to know where to draw the line. The 
elk or moose (Alces machlis) ranges north of 
the Arctic circle, and has to withstand Arctic 
conditions of weather, but it is a forest animal, 
and along with a host of other mammals may 
be regarded as subarctic rather than Arctic. 
The Arctic hare (Lepus timidus), on the other 
hand, is a mammal that penetrates the northern- 
most of Arctic lands, being widespread over 
the Canadian Arctic Archipelago up to 83° 
N. latitude. It is very widely distributed over 
northern Europe and Asia, extending from 
Ireland to Japan. It is common in Scotland, 
where it is known as the blue or mountain hare. 

Wolves {Canis lupus) are common all over 
the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Green- 
land, as well as foxes, of which there are many 
varieties. The silver or black fox {Canis vulpes) 
is said to be a variety of the ordinary British 
fox, and is almost the most valuable of all 
foxes. It is entirely black except the tip of 
the tail, which is usually white. The silvery 
lustre is due to grey rings which usually mark 
the black hairs on the head, the hinder half 



122 POLAR EXPLORATION 

of the back, and the thighs. The blue fox 
{Cams lagopus) is next in value. Its coat re- 
mains blue all the winter, the hair lengthening 
considerably. The Arctic fox, which may be 
a variety of the blue fox, has a short greyish 
brown and white coat in summer, and a long 
white coat in winter. I believe these two forms 
seldom, if ever, inter-breed. These foxes are 
exceedingly numerous in all parts of the Arctic 
Regions, and frequent especially the many 
great bird rookeries that occur in Arctic lands. 
They are among the most characteristic animals 
of the Arctic. They used to be in great numbers 
in Prince Charles Foreland, where the Scottish 
Expedition carried out survey work during 
three summer seasons, but the advent of the 
Norwegian hunter with his traps and his 
devilish poison has almost exterminated them. 
In 1906 and 1907 hundreds of these animals 
were seen, but in 1909 they were practically 
non-existent, none having been seen by any 
of the Conqueror's party, and only one having 
been heard barking although almost every 
part of the island was traversed by the ex- 
plorers. This beautiful animal is extraordi- 
narily bold, though it can scarcely be said to 
be tame. The Scottish explorers in 1906 and 
1907 had these animals coming to within a few 
feet of them, eating the fat out of the frying- 
pan of the canteen, stealing the sugar, bacon 



ANIMAL LIFE 123 

and other food-stuffs, feeding even out of the 
hands of the explorers, and sleeping within a 
few yards of the tent, preferably on the tops 
of the covered caches of provisions. On one 
occasion when standing cooking by the canteen 
I had emptied a tin of condensed milk and had 
dropped it on the ground, when a fox came 
between my legs from behind and made off 
with the tin which was lying between the can- 
teen and myself. Yet for all their boldness 
and audacity, it was impossible to catch them, 
for while giving them bacon or something else 
out of your hand, and watching an opportunity 
to pounce upon them and secure them, the fox 
too had its pair of wonderful eyes fixed upon 
yours and was ready at the slightest sign of 
any hostile move on your part. When I have 
been chaining, I have known them lick the 
fat off the steel measuring-tape, and bite off 
the straps of my sextant-case lying on the ground 
a few yards from me. 

In August they lie in wait in shallow holes 
in the ground, watching the young looms 
(guillemots) coming down from the cliffs ac- 
companied by the old birds. Should the young 
bird fall short of the sea, the fox immediately 
seizes it, provided the chick has escaped the 
fate of being swallowed whole by a glaucous 
gull. On one occasion I was watching, under 
cover of a large rock, two or three foxes lying 



124 POLAR EXPLORATION 

thus in wait. Presently a young loom accom- 
panied by its mother came flying down from 
the rocky cliffs above, and fell short of the sea. 
The devoted mother landed near by to urge 
its young on to the sea and safety, but the 
nearest fox, swift as lightning, in bee-line, head 
down, eyes absolutely fixed on the old bird, 
made a rush on its desired prey. Both fox and 
loom were out of range of my gun, but, instinc- 
tively wishing to succour the weaker one, I 
ran towards the spot where I thought they 
would meet and at long range fired just too late, 
the fox dropping to my shot in the very act of 
plunging its teeth in the loom's neck. The 
swiftness of the whole act was the remarkable 
feature of this striking scene. 

Speaking of lemmings {Myodes torquatus) 
in Grinnell Land, Admiral Markham says, 
"These little mouselike creatures are the 
smallest yet the most numerous and common 
of all quadrupeds in the Arctic Regions. 
They are extremely pugnacious and fearless, 
and often attract attention, when they would 
otherwise be unobserved, by their shrill cries 
of rage at an approaching step. They hiber- 
nate in burrows under the snow, and live 
during the summer on the scant vegetation 
of these regions." With epicurean satisfaction 
the explorer further narrates, "When roasted 
and served up on toast, like sparrows, they 



ANIMAL LIFE 125 

were found to be excellent eating, although 
provokingly small." They have been met with 
on the sea ice three miles from the nearest 
land. There appear to be no lemmings in 
Spitsbergen or Franz Josef Land, but other- 
wise they occur in all Arctic lands, and spread 
themselves far south in Europe, Asia, and 
America. Brehm has graphically described the 
countless swarms of lemmings that sweep the 
tundra, leaving a track of desolation in their 
rear. 

Such is the mammalian life of Arctic lands : 
think of the contrast in Antarctica, where, in 
an area of five and a half million square miles, 
or a continent the size of Europe and Australia 
combined, there is not a single mammal ! Nor, 
as far as we know, did mammals ever exist in 
that mighty continent at any time ! 

Just as Australia was cut off from northern 
lands before the advent of the carnivores or 
any of the higher mammals, so there seems good 
evidence that the great continent of Antarctica, 
which appears to have been connected at one 
time with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, 
and South America, was isolated before the 
advent of mammals in the Trias, in which 
system the first relics of mammalian life appear. 
The land connections of Antarctica with ad- 
jacent continents have been dated even as late 
as Eocene times. "The exact date at which 



126 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the Antarctic continent had its great exten- 
sion northward can perhaps hardly be definitely 
decided upon at present. Hutton argues for 
the Jurassic period as the period of greater 
extension ; but since he wrote much further 
evidence has arisen, and it seems probable 
that the date should be placed later — perhaps 
in Eocene times. Ortmann, discussing the 
matter from a somewhat different aspect, con- 
siders that it probably occurred in the Cre- 
taceous and Eocene periods" (Dr. C. Chilton, 
in Suhantarctic Islands of New Zealand, vol. 
ii, p. 807 : Philosophical Institute of Canter- 
bury, 1909). But even if Antarctica was united 
at later times to Austraha or to the southern 
extremities of South America and South Africa 
at the time the western and more ancient part 
of Australia possessed "the ancestral forms 
of its strange marsupial fauna, both of which 
it had probably received at some earlier epoch 
by a temporary union with the Asiatic con- 
tinent over what is now the Java Sea" (Island 
Life, by Alfred Russel Wallace, p. 497), we 
could only conceive of marsupial forms occurring 
on the continent of Antarctica. It is quite clear 
from the fossils brought home by Dr. Donald 
of the Scottish Expedition of 1892-93, by the 
more recent able researches of Dr. Otto Norden- 
skjold and his companions during the Swedish 
Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04 in the same 



ANIMAL LIFE 127 

region, as well as by the researches of Dr. Pirie 
of the Scotia, the naturalists of the Discovery 
and of Sir Ernest Shackleton's recent expedi- 
tion, that at one time, certainly in Jurassic 
times, there must have been a temperate if not 
a subtropical climate over Antarctica. There- 
fore, if there happened to be land connection 
with Antarctica at even as late a date as I have, 
for the sake of argument, supposed — and there 
is so far no evidence that there was — it would 
have been possible, under those conditions 
of climate, for marsupials to exist. But with 
the changed conditions of climate it does not 
seem likely that they or their descendants could 
possibly survive. It is therefore not surprising 
that there should be no mammals in Antarctic 
lands, though they are abundant in the Arctic, 
where there are even now plentiful connections 
with lands largely occupied by mammals of 
almost every description. 

But if the Antarctic lands are desolate of 
mammals it is not so with the Antarctic seas. 
As in Arctic seas, whales and seals abound in 
enormous numbers, except where they have 
been annihilated by man. Of the whales very 
little is known. Ross described a whale 
"greatly resembling, but said to be distinct 
from, the Greenland whale." But so far no 
such whale has been seen by other explorers 
or whalers within the limit of the pack ice. 



128 POLAR EXPLORATION 

although we know of at least two other right 
whales in subantarctic waters. Finners (Balas- 
noptera), humpbacks (3Iegaptera), and thrashers 
(Orca) have, however, been recorded, and on 
the edge of the ice, blackfish (Globiocephalus) . 
These great whales very often occur in immense 
schools in Antarctic seas. The Scottish Ex- 
pedition of 1892-93 passed through thousands 
of finner whales. On December 16, 1892, 
many came quite close to the ship, and, as far 
as the eye could reach in all directions, one 
could see their curved backs, and see and hear 
their resounding blasts. During recent years 
these whales have been greatly hunted by 
Argentine, Chilian, Norwegian and British Whal- 
ing Companies, in the same manner as similar 
whales have been hunted in northern European 
and Spitsbergen waters. WhaUng stations have 
been set up by these companies on the South 
Shetlands (Deception Island), South Georgia, 
and more recently at the Falkland Islands, 
and the results of these fishings have been a 
very handsome dividend to the shareholders. 
The southern right whale (Balcena australis) 
is also caught by these whalers. It is reported, 
however, although this industry has been estab- 
lished only for five or six years, that the 
numbers of the whales have already markedly 
diminished. But these whales penetrate well 
into the pack, where the small iron steamers 



ANIMAL LIFE 129 

dare not follow, so there is yet a chance that 
they will not be altogether exterminated. The 
purely commercial aspect of these whaling 
expeditions has, so far, made it impossible 
to make any detailed scientific cetacean investi- 
gation. A most profitable scientific investiga- 
tion would be a cetacean expedition, which 
devoted its whole time with two or three ships 
to the study of these Antarctic whales, and, 
indeed, to the study of whales all the world over. 
It is not possible for an Antarctic exploring 
ship, with so many other duties to perform, to 
carry out this very important work. 

In Arctic seas the most notable whale is 
the Greenland or Bowhead whale (Balcena 
mysticetus) which has been captured in enormous 
numbers in the past. In the seventeenth 
century there was a Dutch settlement called 
Smeerenburg, in the north-west of Spitsbergen, 
where the oil was boiled down and the whale- 
bone collected. As many as 2,000 people 
lived and worked there during the summer 
months, women as well as men, as any one 
visiting Spitsbergen at the present day can 
determine by reading both men's and women's 
names on the old Dutch wooden crosses, that 
have stood there in some cases for three hun- 
dred years, and many of which are still in a 
good state of preservation. CoflSn after coffin 
is seen projecting half above the ground ; human 
skulls and bones lie in and around them. 



130 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Other species are similar to those of the 
Antarctic seas, but not nearly so numerous, 
and besides these there are two worthy of 
special mention, namely, the White whale 
(Delphinapterus leucas) and the Narwhal {Mon- 
odon monoceros). The white whale is found 
skirting the shores of almost every Arctic land, 
and is very easily distinguished by its cream- 
coloured skin ; so regular are its movements 
along a coast that skilful hunters seldom fail 
to secure the greater part of a school of them 
by knowing that they will travel along a cer- 
tain coast by a certain route. They are driven 
ashore by means of boats and nets. They 
yield a considerable amount of oil, and their 
skins are manufactured into "porpoise" boot- 
laces. The narwhal is nearly allied to the 
white whale, but is easily distinguished by the 
male's single long spiral ivory tusk, often 7 
or 8 feet long, which has earned for it the name 
of "unicorn," or "uni," by whalers. It is 
hunted by whalers for the value of the ivory 
of the tusk and for its oil ; the tusk is usually 
developed on the left side, but occasionally 
two are developed. It has a circumpolar range. 
(For a fuller account of Arctic whales and seals 
than is possible here, see papers by Dr. R. 
Brown on "Seals of Greenland and Spitsbergen 
Seas" {Proceedings Zoological Society, London, 
1868, pp. 405-438), and on "Cetacea of Davis 



ANIMAL LIFE 131 

Straits and Baffin Bay" (P.Z.S., 1868, pp. 
533-556). Both papers, in revised form, in 
Arctic Manual and Instructions, 1875.) 

Four species of seals are known to inhabit 
Antarctic seas. The first concrete accounts of 
these animals were brought back by Weddell, 
D'Urville, Wilkes, and Ross. But it was not 
until after the departure of the Scottish Expe- 
dition in 1892 that much was known about 
them. The best known and most widely 
distributed is the Weddell seal (Leptonychotes 
weddelli) which is found on, or near, all Ant- 
arctic shores. The least known is the Ross 
seal (Ommatophoca rossi) ; this is the rarest 
true seal in the world. Very few of these 
have ever been seen, and not many occur in 
collections. The other two species are the 
Crab-eating or White Antarctic seal (Lobodon 
carcinophaga) and the Sea-leopard seal (Steno- 
rhyncus leptonyx). The latter is a very remark- 
able seal, noted for its litheness and swiftness. 
It chases, catches, and feeds on penguins in 
the sea. Mr. Wilton, of the Scotia, records 
that "a sea-leopard was observed to catch a 
black-throated penguin by the leg and haul 
him down in the water." 

Another true seal occasionally penetrates the 
pack, but is really an inhabitant of subantarctic 
lands and seas : this is the Great Sea-elephant 
seal (Macrorhinus leoninus), the male of which 
measures about twenty feet in length. 



132 POLAR EXPLORATION 

The Southern Fur seal (Otaria australis) is 
also an animal that is confined to subantarctic 
and south temperate seas. It does not enter 
the pack. Much could be said about this 
interesting animal, concerning the enormous 
numbers, the animal's habits and home, and 
how stupid seal-hunters destroyed a valuable 
industry for half a century by massacring 
millions of these fur seals, not hesitating to 
kill mothers suckling their young, which per- 
ished in hundreds of thousands {Pinni'peds, 
J. A. Allen, Washington, 1880, p. 230). 

Arctic seals, like Arctic birds, are more 
numerous in species, but probably not in num- 
bers of individuals. Bloody slaughter is re- 
corded in the north as in the south, especially 
in the case of the Walrus (Trichechus rosmarus), 
which has been absolutely exterminated in 
some parts of the Arctic, where formerly it used 
to occur in great herds (Seasons with the Sea 
Horses, Lamont, 1861). 

Much has been written recently regarding 
the great fur-seal fisheries of Alaska and the 
Behring Straits, and Labrador, but those Fur 
seals (Otaria ursina), like their cousins in the 
south, are subarctic rather than Arctic ; they 
keep outside the polar pack. The real Arctic 
seals are, with the exception of the walrus, 
like the Antarctic seals, all "true or earless 
seals," that is Phocidse. There are several 



ANIMAL LIFE 133 

species, notably the Greenland seal (Phoca 
grcenlandica) , the Bearded seal or square 
flipper (P. barbata), the Ringed seal (P. 
hispida), the Floe-rat (P. foetida), the Hooded 
or bladder-nosed seal (Cystophora cristata). Of 
these probably the Greenland seal is the 
commonest. These animals assemble in immense 
herds, especially on the ice in Newfoundland 
seas. "In Greenland the annual catch was 
estimated at 33,000, while that in Newfound- 
land used to exceed 500,000, and in Jan Mayen 
seas the total number killed each year was 
fully 30,000." Fortunately the killing of these 
seals, like that of the fur seals, is now regulated 
by law, and although they may sometimes be 
over-killed, yet there is not altogether reckless 
slaughter. The bearded seal is the largest 
of Arctic seals, and although it is not so large 
as some Antarctic species, yet it may attain 
a length of about ten feet. Like other mammals 
in Spitsbergen, all these seals have been largely 
killed out in that archipelago. 

The birds of the Polar Regions are a char- 
acteristic feature, and again there is the striking 
fact that, although Arctic lands teem with many 
species of birds, there are, with the exception 
of the migratory Chionis, no Antarctic land 
birds. This is probably due in part to the 
geological reasons that explain the absence 
of mammals, in part to the obvious difficulty 



134 POLAR EXPLORATION 

of fragile land birds getting to Antarctic lands 
across the wide expanse of the stormy Great 
Southern Ocean, and also in part to the fact 
that, if they did arrive there, they would find 
hardly any suitable nesting-place, and would 
be without their necessary food supply on 
account of the scarcity of plant life, especially 
the practical absence of flowering plants and 
flower- visiting insects. Scoresby, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Scoresby Sound at Cape Swainson 
in 71° N. on the east coast of Greenland, says, 
"Numbers of winged insects, however, were 
met with, particularly on the hills among the 
stones. These consisted of several species of 
butterflies, with bees and mosquitoes ! Near 
the beach were several plants in flower, with 
a few that were further advanced and in a state 
of fructification." What a paradise for Arctic 
land birds, and what a contrast to the barren 
rocks of Antarctica, almost completely oblit- 
erated with ice and snow ! How could there 
be land birds in Antarctica ? 

Arctic land birds are full of interest, but it 
is impossible to enter into any detail concern- 
ing them here. The reader should look into 
the works of Seebohm, Feilden, Harvie-Brown 
and Pearson, as well as the delightful pictures 
of tundra life that Brehm gives. (For the 
natural history of Arctic birds reference should 
be made to the following : — From North Pole 



ANIMAL LIFE 135 

to Equator, A. E. Brehm ; Beyond Petsora East- 
ward, Henry J. Pearson, with appendices by 
Colonel H. W. FeHden, C.B. ; The Birds of 
Siberia, Henry Seebohm ; Travels of a Natural- 
ist in Northern Europe, J. A. Harvie-Brown.) 
The most typical of all Arctic birds is the Snow 
Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), which is in 
immense numbers, and which finds a home 
and nesting-place in every Arctic land, no matter 
how bleak. The snow bunting arrives in Franz 
Josef Land about the middle of April, and has 
been recorded to remain plentifully until 
Oct&ber 14th, and stragglers not leaving until 
October 30th, three days after the disappearance 
of the sun in that latitude, viz. 80° N. The 
nests, which are made of dried grass and 
feathers, are built among stones, under shelter 
of over-lying rocks, in rock crevices, and under 
peaty banks. There are usually five to seven 
eggs. The young birds have been recorded 
as early as July 10th in Franz Josef Land. 
The Purple Sandpiper (Tringa striata) is the 
next most plentiful Arctic land bird. It is 
usually the first bird that meets the Arctic 
explorer on landing. The first sandpiper of 
the season recorded in Franz Josef Land was 
seen on May 29th. Late in June eggs were 
found, and on July 4th the first young sand- 
pipers were captured. The nest is built in a 
hollow among Arctic willow, lichen, and the 



136 POLAR EXPLORATION 

like, and is very difficult to see, either when 
the eggs are bare or when the bird is sitting 
upon them, because of the remarkable resem- 
blance of the bird, eggs, and nest to its sur- 
roundings. One may almost tread on the bird 
before it will rise, and even then the nest is 
difficult to ffiad. A known nest at a definite 
number of feet in a certain direction from a 
prominent mark is very difficult to see. Of 
course, this may also be said of many other birds 
and eggs, but it is perhaps as pronounced in 
the case of the purple sandpiper as any other 
bird. There are many other birds that could 
be noticed — the Ejiot (Tringa canuta), whose 
eggs have only recently been found ; the 
Sanderling (Calidris arenaria) ; the Grey Phale- 
rope (Phalaropus fulicarius) ; the Dunlin (Tringa 
alpina) ; the Little Stint (Tringa minuta), 
which Pearson found breeding in such numbers 
in Novaya Zemlya ; the Lapland Bunting 
(Calcarius lapponicus), Redpoles (Linota) and 
many others of the smaller birds too many 
to enumerate. Then there is the Ptarmigan 
(Lagcypus rupestris and L. hemileucurus) , and 
the Willow Grouse (Lagopus alhus), which vary 
their plumage with the season, so that they 
are at all times very much in accord with their 
surroundings, whether the snow is white or 
dirty yellow, or whether they are sitting among 
lichen-covered stones. These birds form most 



ANIMAL LIFE 137 

excellent food, the ptarmigan being common 
to almost all Arctic lands, even beyond the 
83rd parallel of north latitude. Birds of prey, 
notably the Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) 
and the Greenland Falcon (Falco candicans) 
are also characteristic birds in many Arctic 
lands. 

But when we come to consider sea birds, 
then the Antarctic Regions are as rich as the 
Arctic Regions, if not in species, certainly in 
numbers. The two most characteristic orders 
of birds are penguins and petrels. Besides 
these there is a shag, one gull, two skuas, and 
two terns. The penguins literally swarm in 
millions, and occupy every available space 
of bare ground near the sea that is not ice- 
covered. These crowded areas recall the re- 
markable bird cliffs and isolated bird islands 
of the Arctic Regions. So numerous are pen- 
guins even in subantarctic islands that sealers 
have resorted to the barbarous method of 
boiling these birds down indiscriminately for 
the sake of the valuable oil that they contain. 
This custom has been rightly put a stop to 
in some British possessions. The most remark- 
able penguin that exists in the Antarctic Regions 
is the Emperor penguin {Aytenodytes forsteri), 
which, though not so numerous as other species, 
is found in very great numbers in certain places, 
as, for instance, Victoria Land, Coats Land, 



138 POLAR EXPLORATION 

and other lands that are situated well within 
the ice limit. It is the handsomest and largest 
of all penguins, an adult, when in good con- 
dition, weighing about eighty pounds. 

D'Urville was the first to discover and bring 
back to Paris the egg of the Emperor Penguin, 
but nothing was known about the breeding 
habits of this remarkable bird until Dr. Wilson 
and the naturalists of the Discovery brought 
back the first description. The bird builds no 
nest, but sits on the ice and lays a single egg, 
which it places on the top of its feet and covers 
by a flap of skin and feathers. The egg being 
laid before the winter is over and hatched before 
the advent of spring, there is heavy mortality 
among the chicks. The chick is nestled on 
the feet of the parent bird, and kept warm like 
the egg by the flap of skin and feathers, which 
surrounds it almost like a marsupial pouch. 
In spite of the care thus taken of the chicks, 
many die from exposure, and each bird if it 
has not a chick of its own is anxious to secure 
one from its neighbour. The early breeding 
of the Emperor Penguin has possibly arisen from 
the necessity of giving sufficient time by the end 
of the summer for the young bird to develop 
to such a stage of maturity that it can by that 
time fend for itself. 

Other penguins are all very much smaller 
than the Emperor, weighing about 8 to 14 lbs., 



ANIMAL LIFE 139 

the most plentiful and characteristic species 
is the Black-throated penguin {Pygoscelis adelice). 
This species is common to every Antarctic 
seaboard that explorers have yet visited. The 
Scotia naturalists estimated that, on Ferrier 
Peninsula alone, which was for two or three 
miles simply alive with these birds, there were 
not less than two millions. Altogether, in 
Laurie Island, South Orkneys and its off-lying 
islets, no less than fourteen rookeries were known, 
besides the Ferrier Peninsula rookery. The 
favourite sites for these communities were on 
rocky places near the sea, where small stones 
abounded, and these were sometimes occupied 
up to 500 ft. above sea-level. As the season 
advanced these rookeries became indescribably 
dirty, being masses of mud, with pools of filth, 
and the birds themselves became correspondingly 
defiled. 

At the rookeries in Scotia Bay the first signs 
of nest-building were noted (1903) on October 
10th. By the 20th nearly all were paired, 
and the appearance of an unpaired bird gave 
rise to a fearful commotion, every bird trying 
to get a billful of feathers from the unhappy 
one, while all the penguins in the vicinity raised 
their voices and screeched their loudest. 

The appearance of such wanderers, too, 
generally resulted in a free fight among those 
around. 



140 POLAR EXPLORATION 

The nests are built of stones, which the 
penguins gather often from a long distance, 
and they may be lined with a few stray quills 
and a bone or two. Every bird is an accom- 
plished thief, and whenever possible steals 
stones from its neighbour's nest. There are 
usually two eggs. The first egg found by the 
Scotia naturalists was taken on October 29th ; 
on October 31st no less than 739 eggs were 
gathered from the same rookery, and between 
November 2nd and 10th no less than 2,075 
eggs were taken for domestic use. The period 
of incubation is about thirty-two days. Both 
the flesh and the eggs of this penguin form 
very nutritious and palatable food. Besides 
the black-throated penguin, it was estimate^ 
that there were at least 100,000 Gentoo pen- 
guins (Pygoscelis papua) in the Scotia Bay 
rookeries. The naturalists of the Scotia were 
fortunate in falling in with a great number of 
the Ringed penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica) at 
the South Orkneys at several rookeries, notably 
at Ellium Isle and Saddle Island. At a rookery 
on Mackenzie Peninsula there were about a 
quarter of a million of ringed penguins, and 
the rookery at Saddle Island was tenanted by 
about 50,000 birds. They were entirely absent 
during the winter, not reaching the South 
Orkneys till November 2nd. Over 1,000 eggs 
were taken by Dr. Pirie on December 12th, 



ANIMAL LIFE 141 

at the Mackenzie Peninsula rookery. There is 
one very remarkable discovery the Scotia nat- 
uralists made with regard to the young of this 
bird, and that is, that the chick has two 
stages of down. This is a most interesting 
discovery, for no other bird is known to have 
more than one down stage. These are the four 
species of penguins characteristic of the Ant- 
arctic Regions, though the golden crested or 
Marconi penguin (Catarrhactes chrysolophus) is 
also recorded from the South Orkneys as a 
straggler, and breeds at the South Shetlands. 
Thus it is seen that there are several million 
penguins of at least three species on South 
Orkneys alone ! Imagine the legions that swarm 
on every possible Antarctic coast ! 

Among the important ornithological results 
of the Scottish National Expedition, not the 
least striking were the investigations made 
by the Scotia naturalists on petrels. Wilson 
petrels (Oceanites oceanicus) were found breed- 
ing in considerable numbers, and several eggs 
were obtained. They had only previously been 
found breeding on Kerguelen. The occurrence 
of the Black-bellied stormy petrel (Fregetta 
melanog aster), says Mr. Eagle Clarke, "was 
one of the most interesting ornithological 
discoveries made by the expedition. It implies 
a remarkable extension in its known range, 
and removes the doubt which has hitherto 



142 POLAE EXPLORATION 

overshadowed the record of its ha^Tiig bred 
at Soutli Georgia, as mentioned by Pagenstecher, 
in the southern summer of 1SS2-S3." 

Other interesting discoveries made by the 
Scoiia naturalists were the finding the ^gs 
of the Cape pigeon (Daption capensis) and 
the young of the Snowy petrd {Pagodroma 
nirea). Viojd. tiieir observations, too, it may 
almc^ certainly be forecasted that the Antarctic 
fohnar {TJudasscBca antarctica) and the Silver 
petrel {PriocdLa glacialoides) will be found to 
breed in the South Orkneys. Such a series 
of records made in one order of birds in one 
locality by the ^orts of Mr. TVilton, Dr. Pirie 
and r>r. Radmose Brown, apart from many 
other valuable records, may safely be said to 
be without p^^el in the history of Polar 
esploration. 

Petrels, next to penguins., are scattered most 
widely all over the Antarctic Regions, and are 
in most cases common, not only in that region, 
but also in the Great Southern Ocean, where 
many other species idiich do not penetrate 
into the ice zone occnr. One of the most 
striking of these is W iJson's petrel, which can 
be followed from British waters to the farthest 
southern limit of Antarctic seas, and which is 
found breeding, as I have indicated, in the 
South Orkneys, Xaguden, and probably other 
Antarctic idands. In all probability the birds 



ANIMAL LIFE 143 

in British waters breed in Antarctic islands ! 
This fact is hardly conceivable when we consider 
the proportions of the bird, which are much 
the same as those of a swallow, but the same 
remarkable fact appears to hold good for the 
Arctic tern, which breeds in the Arctic Regions, 
and which was discovered by the Scotia nat- 
uralists to be spending its days, during the 
northern winter, in the seas off Coats Land ! 

Ross regarded the presence of the Snowy 
petrel as a sign of proximity of the Antarctic 
pack, and this observation appears to be per- 
fectly correct, for there are few days, whilst 
navigating in the pack, that one does not meet 
this graceful bird. It is circumpolar in dis- 
tribution, and breeds in most inaccessible cliffs 
on nearly all Antarctic coasts. For three 
hundred years the Cape pigeon has been known 
to every South Sea sailor, but the eggs were 
first taken by Dr. Pirie on the cliffs of Mount 
Ramsay, on the west side of Jessie Bay, South 
Orkneys, in 1903. This species which we are 
inclined to regard as the most plentiful bird 
in the world, will probably be found to breed 
on most Antarctic and subantarctic islands, 
and on many parts of the coast-line of Ant- 
arctica, and is found scattered over the whole 
of the vast Southern Ocean from 35° S. to the 
edge of the Antarctic continent. Fully 50,000 
of these birds breed in the South Orkneys. 



144 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Their nests, composed of small angular fragments 
of rock and some earth, are placed on the ledges 
of precipitous cliffs. The Cape pigeon, like 
other petrels, has the habit of ejecting from 
its tubular nostrils a red, oily, foul-smelling 
fluid, composed of the half-digested remains 
of crustaceans (Euphausia). The naturalists 
visiting the nests had to risk having this fluid 
squirted over their face and clothes. The 
birds can squirt this fluid to a distance of six 
or eight feet. The Cape pigeon often allowed 
itself to be captured on its nest. The eggs, 
which are pure white, are laid singly, and are 
very large for the size of the bird. 

Besides these there are many other petrels 
recorded in Antarctic seas, and perhaps the best 
known of these is the Giant petrel (Ossifraga 
gigantea) called also the Nellie and the Stinker. 
Why sailors should have called this bird a 
"Nellie" I do not know, but the name 
"Stinker" is quite appropriate, on account of 
the curious, unpleasant, and persistent odour 
it possesses. Not only does the bird have 
this odour externally, but even its flesh and 
eggs have the same smell. The Scotia dogs 
readily ate penguins and other birds, but 
would not eat the flesh of the giant petrel. 
The weight of this bird varies from 73^ to 10 
lbs., and it looks nearly the size of a swan. 
The plumage varies from white, through grey. 



ANIMAL LIFE • 145 

to almost black. These varieties appear to 
interbreed. The nest is a large pile of sub- 
angular stones, in the form of a truncated 
cone; and usually only one large white egg 
is laid. The nellie's gluttonous habits are 
well known to South Sea sailors ; feeding 
ravenously on the remains of slaughtered seals 
or refuse, and filling itself to repletion till it 
is almost comatose, it is unable to rise from 
the ground till it disgorges the contents of its 
stomach. I have seen these filthy birds, feed- 
ing on the carcase of a seal, move off a few steps 
and disgorge what they had devoured and then 
begin to eat again. 

Although a shag had previously been noted 
in the Antarctic Regions, the specific identity 
of these Antarctic shags remained somewhat 
uncertain until the Scottish Expedition finally 
settled the matter at the South Orkneys, in 
1903, by finding it was the Blue-eyed shag 
{Phalacrocorax atriceps). 

The Dominican gull (Larus dominicanus) is 
not very plentiful and does not appear to cross 
the circle. The Antarctic skua {Megalestris 
antarctica) and MacCormack's skua (M. mac- 
cormicki) are typical Antarctic birds : the 
former is very plentiful in the South Orkneys 
and other less southern Antarctic islands. The 
latter is more associated with higher southern 
latitudes. Antarctic skuas are very ferocious 



146 POLAR EXPLORATION 

birds, and they will fight with each other to 
the death. 

The two terns are the White-rumped tern 
(Sterna hirundinacea), which breeds plentifully 
on Antarctic islands, and the Arctic tern (S. 
macrura). Mr. Eagle Clarke is of opinion 
that the Arctic tern does not breed in the Ant- 
arctic Regions, but that it is a summer visitor 
during the Arctic winter. Mr. Clarke says, 
"The finding of this tern in the seas off the 
South Polar continent must be regarded as 
one of the most important ornithological dis- 
coveries made by the Expedition (Scotia), for, 
as has already been stated, no terns appear 
to have been previously captured within seas 
girdled by the Antarctic Circle." 

But besides whales, seals, and birds, Polar 
seas teem with lowlier forms of animal life 
from fishes down to simple unicellular animals, 
and it is all this vast host of fishes and inverte- 
brates that accounts for the large number of 
mammals and birds in Polar Regions — north 
and south. These lowlier and mostly smaller 
forms of animal life depend, as already indicated, 
upon the meadows and pastures of the oceans 
which are made up of immense quantities of 
unicellular algse. Fishes and invertebrates occur 
everywhere in Polar seas, from the surface 
down to depths of about 2,000 fathoms in the 
Arctic Regions, and to depths exceeding 3,000 
fathoms in the Antarctic Regions. 



ANIMAL LIFE 147 

It would be entering into too large and intri- 
cate a subject, and too technical a one, to 
attempt to discuss Polar invertebrate life in 
the present volume. It is also dangerous at 
the present time to formulate general state- 
ments regarding the distribution and general 
laws which regulate this host of living beings, 
as Polar exploration is as yet in its infancy, 
as far as serious research in this subject is con- 
cerned. Still there are one or two points that 
may already be gleaned from the oceanographi- 
cal research of several of the recent expeditions 
to the Arctic and Antarctic — ^notably those 
of Leigh Smith, Payer, Nordenskjold, the Prince 
of Monaco, Duke of Orleans, Nathorst and 
others in the north, and those of the Challenger, 
Valdivia, Belgica, Scotia, Discovery, Gauss, Fran- 
eais, Antarctic and Pourquoi-pas ? in the south. 

One forecast of importance that may be 
made is regarding the theory of "Bipolarity," 
in which it is suggested that species of animals 
in Arctic seas find, as it were, their reflected 
images represented by species in Antarctic 
seas. 

A few years ago the case was doubtful. But 
modern Polar exploration, especially in Ant- 
arctic seas, with the tendency to explore more 
thoroughly definite areas, by vessels carrying 
on board a much larger number and more 
highly trained staffs of naturalists, to whom 



148 POLAR EXPLORATION 

better opportunities are being given to carry 
out their special work, has rather revealed the 
fact that such similarities which could support 
the theory of bipolarity do not occur. Nay, 
even this interesting fact seems to be brought 
out — that, to a large extent, the invertebrate 
fauna that inhabits one area of Antarctic seas 
is not the same as that which inhabits another. 
The invertebrate animals taken by the Belgians 
and the French to the west of Graham Land 
are markedly different in many respects from 
those taken by the Scots and the Swedes to 
the east of Graham Land. The English also 
obtained in the Ross Sea different species from 
those obtained by the Scots and Swedes, Bel- 
gians and French, or Germans. 

Examination of the results of the deep-sea 
trawling shows that, although in shallow water 
quite a number of new species were obtained, 
forming but a small proportion of the whole 
number of animals collected, the list of deep-sea 
species shows that almost every animal obtained 
in deep waters and in high southern latitudes 
is new to science. These facts should give an 
indication of the scientific value from a zo- 
ological point of view of deep-sea exploration 
in the Antarctic Regions. Take any group 
whatever and it will be found that the greater 
portion of animals obtained in deep Antarctic 
waters are new to science. 



ANIMAL LIFE 149 

With the exception of that great Scottish 
navigator and explorer Sir James Clark Ross, 
who led the wa,y to deep-sea exploration with 
efforts which Sir Joseph Hooker has described 
as almost incredible, and who was the first and 
only one for many a year to bring back examples 
of deep-sea animals from the Antarctic Regions, 
Polar explorers until quite recent years have 
not considered it an important part of their 
programme to investigate the physics and 
biology of Antarctic seas. 

The Challenger, which was not an ice-pro- 
tected ship, and which did not include Ant- 
arctic exploration as part of its programme, 
did, nevertheless, in 1874, cross the Antarctic 
Circle, and made one trawhng in 1675 fathoms 
only slightly north of the Circle, and made 
other deep-sea investigations in relatively high 
latitudes. The Valdivia also carried out valuable 
oceanographical researches in similar latitudes 
a little further west than the Challenger. But 
of recent Antarctic expeditions the Belgica, 
Scotia, Gauss, Francais, and Pourquoi-pas ? are 
the only ones that have made oceanographical 
research a special aim. The Scotia, besides 
being strongly fortified to battle with ice, was 
better equipped as an oceanographical ship 
than any Antarctic ship has ever been, and 
was thus able to carry out most important in- 
vestigations in very deep water in high latitudes. 



150 POLAR EXPLORATION 

In the scientific work carried out on board 
the Erebus, Hooker especially supported Ross, 
and Sir John Richardson in his report on "The 
Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and 
Terror," says the warmest thanks of zoologists 
"are due to Dr. Joseph Dalton Hooker for his 
able co-operation with his commanding officer, 
and for the excellent sketches and notes which 
he has contributed." Hooker was the sole 
worker of the townet, bringing the captures 
daily to Ross and helping him with the preser- 
vation of marine animals, as well as with draw- 
ing a great number of these animals for him. 
The zoological collections of that expedition 
were most important and furnished the first 
evidence that a rich fauna existed in Antarctic 
seas at all depths from the surface to the bottom. 
The deep-sea exploration of the Challenger 
in relatively high southern latitudes furnished 
further concrete evidence that there existed 
in Antarctic seas a very rich fauna of fishes 
and invertebrates, and also indicated to us 
that great results might be obtained by an ex- 
ploring ship equipped for deep-sea work that 
was also fitted out for doing that work well 
within the Antarctic ice-pack. The Valdivia 
in 1898 explored as far south as 64° 14' S. off 
Enderby Land, and made extensive biological 
collections especially in plankton. 

But it was the Belgica in 1897-99 that first 



ANIMAL LIFE 151 

successfully carried out marine biological in- 
vestigation well within the Antarctic Circle. 
During a cruise and remarkable drift south 
of 70° S. latitude between 80° and 102° W. 
longitude, as well as during her more easterly- 
cruise along the west coast of Graham Land, 
frequent dredgings were made which resulted 
in a very remarkable collection of deep-sea 
marine animals being secured. Most of this 
collection was made in water of about 200 or 
250 fathoms ; but north of 70° S. a few dredg- 
ings were made in depths of more than 1,400 
fathoms. The reports on this rich collection 
of Antarctic marine animals are now nearly 
completed in a large series of valuable volumes 
giving an account of the scientific results of 
the voyage. Never before had such a large 
collection of marine animals been made in the 
Antarctic Regions. Fishes, echinoderms, crus- 
taceans, polychsets, gorgonids, bryozoa, and, 
in fact, representatives of almost every order 
of invertebrates, were obtained. The Gauss, 
Discovery, and Antarctic (1901-04) were a series 
of expeditions which continued the exploration 
of the sea in relation to marine animals, but 
their work was not nearly so comprehensive 
in this direction as that of the Belgica. The 
Gauss trawled in greater depths, but not nearly 
in such high southern latitudes. The work 
of all these expeditions has, however, added 



152 POLAR EXPLORATION 

considerably to our knowledge of Antarctic 
invertebrate zoology, and not least of all the 
fine work done by Mr. T. V. Hodgson, who 
made the greatest possible use of every oppor- 
tunity that was given to him. To Hodgson 
is entirely due the fine invertebrate records 
the Discovery brought home. 

But it was left to the Scotia to carry on more 
extensively than any other Antarctic expedi- 
tion has ever done marine biological research, 
and also to carry on that research in very deep 
water well south of the Antarctic Circle. Al- 
together the Scotia dredged 150 times in water 
varying between 4 and 161 fathoms, and had 
traps down on 250 days, hauHng them up 
and rebaiting them 200 times. But besides 
this, the Scotia trawled 18 times in water ex- 
ceeding 1,000 fathoms, 15 times in water 
exceeding 1,500 fathoms, 11 times in water 
exceeding 2,000 fathoms, and 4 times in water ex- 
ceeding 2,500 fathoms. Most of these trawlings 
were taken south of 60° S., whilst navigating 
well within the Polar pack and among bergs. 
On account of the constant presence of ice the 
greatest possible vigilance and care was re- 
quired in handling the trawling gear. Some- 
times the trawling cable would catch on a floe, 
which would add several tons pressure to what 
the cable had already to bear. On such occa- 
sions the great mass of ice might be carried down 



ANIMAL LIFE 153 

below the surface to quite a considerable distance, 
until something destroyed the equal balance 
that held it, when it would rapidly rise to the 
surface and shoot out endwise far above the 
water. When this happened the ship had to 
be handled in such a way as to avoid if possible 
the severe shock it would sustain from the blow 
of such a huge piece of ice, weighing many 
tons and as hard as rock. But even when 
it was impossible for the ship to escape the 
blow, it was of vital importance to handle her 
in such a way that the rudder and propeller 
were not damaged or carried away by the 
impact of the ice. This was the first time 
that deep-sea trawling had been attempted 
in the ice-pack, and if under ordinary circum- 
stances in the open sea great care, accuracy, 
and considerable practice are required to carry 
out the operation successfully, much more 
so was that the case on the present occasion. 
The Scotia trawling cable was capable of with- 
standing a strain of more than nine tons, and 
on more than one occasion the dynamometer 
showed a strain of more than six tons. Every 
thousand fathoms of the trawling cable weighed 
a ton, and on several occasions the Scotia had 
as much as 4,000 fathoms, i.e. 4| miles, of cable 
paid out. It can be understood, therefore, that 
the operation was no child's play, and that 
the 40-horse-power winch, the derrick, the 



154 POLAR EXPLORATION 

blocks and every portion of the working gear 
had to be in as perfect condition as possible 
to avoid any accident. Yet, in spite of every 
precaution in the course of this arduous work, 
more than once the lives of men were endan- 
gered. I have undertaken arduous sledging 
and other land work within the Arctic and 
Antarctic Regions, but I know of no work that 
is more difficult or more dangerous than trawl- 
ing in the greatest depths of the ocean in a 
sea closely packed with ice. The great increase 
of strain on the cable when it is caught by the 
ice, which is unavoidable, and the sudden re- 
lease of strain, it may be to the extent of even 
3 or 4 tons, tells to the utmost on all the gear, 
and it is not unlik ely that something may give 
way with disastrous results. Such accidents are 
most likely to happen in the early part of a 
voyage, before everybody is thoroughly familiar 
with the operation. On one occasion the trawl- 
ing-cable drum on the Scotia, containing 6,000 
fathoms of cable weighing over sis tons, "took 
charge," and the bo'sun had a miraculous escape, 
and on other occasions other members of the 
expedition had their Hves and Hmbs endangered. 
These incidents are only mentioned here to let 
the reader understand that Polar explorers 
carrying on their researches at sea encounter 
perils at least as great as those maldng long 
journeys on the land. 



ANIMAL LIFE 155 

During the winter alone in the South 
Orkneys, in Scotia Bay and Jessie Bay, the 
Scottish naturaKsts caught upwards of 2,000 
fish, which served not only for zoological 
requirements, but also as an excellent supply 
of fresh food. Besides fishes, examples of 
almost every class of invertebrate animals 
were secured. So large are the collections 
of the Scottish Expedition alone, that it is 
difficult to do more than refer the reader to 
the official reports. But it will give a good 
idea of what the result of the deep-sea trawl- 
ing operations were, if some quotations are 
given from these volumes. Here is one from 
the author's own log, which gives some idea of 
a day's work at trawling, as well as of a zo- 
ological catch, in the far south, and in tolerably 
deep water. "March 18th, 71° 22' S., 16' 
34' W. Barometer falling slightly, 29.206 to 
28.84 inches, temperature steady, 28° to 29° 
F. Wind, gentle, with westerly breezes till 
8 a.m., N.E. to N. afterwards. Fine clear 
though overcast weather, with occasional light 
showers of snow. We sounded from 6.45 a.m. 
to 8.15 a.m., in 1,410 fathoms, and took five 
serial temperatures from surface to the bottom. 
The trawl with 2,400 fathoms ( = 2^ miles) of 
cable out, which registered a strain of 2| tons, 
brought up one of the two richest hauls we 
have had, that of the Burdwood Bank possibly 



156 POLAR EXPLORATION 

equalling, but scarcely surpassing it — and this 
one, on account of the greater depth and high 
southern latitude in which it was taken, is 
certainly by far the most important we have 
had. Two very large-stalked sponges, both 
new species (Caulophacus scotice and Malaco- 
saccus coatsi), besides two others, three or four 
very large purple holothurians, a quantity 
of brilliant red Crustacea, probably Crangon, 
two species of isopods, five or six chsetopods, 
three or four gasteropods, two masked with 
anemones, — a large number of very hard and 
large sea-anemones of a pale-greyish and 
lavender colour, about three species of brittle 
stars, five species of fish including one of a 
beautiful blue and delicate grey-lavender colour, 
and one of which we only secured the head, 
which was remarkable for its crocodilian ap- 
pearance, with its long and toothed jaw, — 
some ctenophores, and jelly-fish, not in good 
condition, — bryozoa and probably sertularians 
and alcyonarians, — altogether fully sixty species ; 
specimens which, for their striking variety of 
colour and form as well as from their large num- 
ber, could not fail to strike the most casual and 
least interested individual. Yet ignorant people 
tell you there is no life in the Antarctic !" 

As an example of disappointment it may 
be mentioned that on the following day, in a 
depth of 1,221 fathoms, the trawl was lowered, 



ANIMAL LIFE 157 

putting out 2,000 fathoms ( = 23^ miles) of 
cable, but it did not touch the bottom, and 
this occurred more than once in this locality. 
The only way that this could be accounted 
for was that there were strong under-currents 
sweeping the trawl off the ground ; for during 
the previous year, in about 2,500 fathoms, 
bottom was reached with 3,100 fathoms of 
cable, or only 600 fathoms extra beyond the 
depth, instead of 800 as on this occasion. 

On the 21st of March, however, in lat. 69° 
33' S., 15° 19' W., the Scotia secured a good 
haul in 2,620 ^ fathoms ( = 3 miles) on a bottom 
of blue mud. In order to make sure of the 
trawl reaching the bottom, we fixed four furnace 
bars, each weighing 22 lbs., and two olive- 
shaped weights on the cable, each of 20 lbs. 
An extra 1,000 fathoms of cable were let out, 
that is to say, 3,620 fathoms (4| miles) in all. 
The trawl began going out at 10.15 a.m., and 
was on board again at 6.33 p.m. ; this time 
there had been about 500 fathoms of cable 
on the bottom, showing that we could have 
done on this occasion with our usual allowance 
of 500 or 600 extra fathoms. The dynamometer 
registered up to 5 tons. The trawl came up 
with a great deal of mud and many big stones, 

^ At 2,620 fathoms there is a pressure on any object of 
about 2J tons per square inch, reckoning 1 ton per 1,000 
fathoms. 



158 POLAR EXPLORATION 

and the following animals : — one fish, a siphono- 
phore tentacle about 600 fathoms from the 
end of the cable, arenaceous worm tubes, two 
species of asteroids, one species of ophiuroid, 
four species of holothurians, broken bits of 
echinoids, a medusoid, probably from the sur- 
face, two species of fixed stalked colonial coelen- 
terates, two species of sponges, and some species 
of foraminifers {Zoological Log of the "Scotia," 
Edinburgh, 1908). 

Besides trawling on the bottom, the Scottish 
Expedition used other means of catching animals 
living in Antarctic seas. They followed the 
excellent practice of the Prince of Monaco by 
using large baited traps, resembling in prin- 
ciple the common lobster pot or creel, extensively 
employed by fishermen of Scotland and other 
countries. These traps consist of a hght frame- 
work of wood covered with herring-net, with 
two funnel-shaped entrances placed in suitable 
positions through which fishes and other creat- 
ures swim or crawl into the trap, and being 
unable to find their way out again are captured. 
This valuable form of apparatus was first used 
in the Polar Regions by the author in 1896, 
in Franz Josef Land, and since that time has 
been used by many Polar expeditions wdth 
success — ^notably by the Prince of Monaco 
himseK in Spitsbergen Seas ; and in the Ross 
Sea by Hodgson, following the advice of Armi- 



ANIMAL LIFE 159 

tage and Koettlitz, both of whom had seen it 
used with such success in Franz Josef Land. 
During the wintering of the Scotia, these traps 
were used extensively, several of them being 
put out in different depths and at varying dis- 
tances from the ship. The Scotia also used 
these traps in a depth of 161 fathoms off Coats 
Land. 

Mention has already been made of the use 
of fine silk tow-nets, which were used to get 
samples of diatoms and other algse drifting 
about on the surface of the water. These nets, 
while doing their botanical scouting, also gather 
small marine invertebrates drifting or swim- 
ming freely on or near the surface of the sea. 
This "plankton" investigation forms one of 
the most interesting forms of Polar exploration, 
and the Belgica, the Gauss, and the Scotia all 
carried out extensive investigations in this 
direction in Antarctic seas with very important 
and interesting results. But besides using such 
nets on the surface, the Polar explorer uses 
them, like other explorers of the sea in other 
parts of the world, for ascertaining what creat- 
ures are drifting or swimming in intermediate 
depths between the surface and the bottom. 

The nets used for this purpose are of 
various sizes and shapes, the smallest may be 
two inches in diameter, the largest many feet: 
the Prince of Monaco uses a vertical plankton 



160 POLAR EXPLORATION 

net 15 or 16 feet in diameter ; the largest net 
the Scotia used was eight feet in diameter. 
The most generally useful size and that most 
frequently employed was, however, one of 
four inches diameter, and three feet in length, 
made of the finest Miller's silk, which catches 
almost all the minutest forms except possibly 
cocospheres and rhabdospheres. (The finest 
Miller's silk, known as No. 20, has 5,926 meshes 
to a square centimetre : each side of the mesh 
is 0.05 mm. long.) The larger nets are made 
of coarse muslin. Among the various designs 
of these plankton nets some are devised to open 
and close at definite depths, so that a definite 
stratum of the sea may be explored to see what 
animals live there ; others are so constructed 
as to enable an approximate estimate to be 
made of the number, as well as of the species, 
of animals that live in a certain volume of water. 
All these different kinds of nets were exten- 
sively used on board the Belgica, Gauss, Scotia, 
Francais, and Pourquoi-pas ? and less exten- 
sively on other recent Antarctic exploring ships. 
The Discovery and Nimrod did not use these 
nets or other marine biological apparatus so 
extensively, because their explorations were 
more specially on the land rather than the sea. 
The Scotia used an 8-foot vertical net as far 
south as 71° 50' S., 23° 10' E., lowering it there 
to 1,000 fathoms below the surface. The hand- 



ANIMAL LIFE 161 

ling of these delicate nets within the pack is 
by no means easy, and cannot very often be 
carried out. Through a hole in a continuous 
field of ice, such a net can be lowered with rela- 
tive safety, but in the drifting pack it may be 
very difficult and often quite impossible. The 
successful accomplishment of this delicate op- 
eration by the Scotia demonstrates to what 
a state of proficiency the officers, staff, and 
crew had attained in the handling of this and 
other deep-sea gear, and it is a matter of deep 
regret that such a ship, on which so much 
thought, ingenuity, and money had been ex- 
pended, had to be sold for "an old song," and 
such a set of men, who had come to know how 
to carry on not only such important deep-sea 
exploration, but to pursue it in high latitudes 
within the pack ice, had to part once more, to 
scatter all over the face of the globe, never again 
to meet together to carry on such important 
work for the advancement of science, which 
is always for the good of mankind. 

The handling of a trawl among the pack 
is difficult, even dangerous, on account of the 
heaviness of the gear and the great and often 
sudden strains that occur. With the large 
fine tow-nets there is no danger, but the ap- 
paratus — ^winch, wire, and net itself — are all 
of such a light description that, if the wire or 
net gets entangled on pieces of pack ice, they 



162 POLAR EXPLORATION 

are apt to get damaged or carried away. Con- 
sequently the greatest vigilance has to be used : 
long poles have to be in readiness to push the 
heavier pieces of ice away from the place where 
the net is expected to come to the surface by 
the people on the ship and on the ice itself. 
The winch-man has constantly to be on the 
alert to "heave gently!" "stop!" "heave 
gently !" or what always produces such a 
cheery effect, "heave away!" Nothing is more 
exciting, nothing more intensely interesting than 
to hear the merry winch under perfect control 
heaving in the vertical net, or the trawl cul- 
minating in the final act of "taking it aboard." 
Reaching the South Pole isn't in it ! At the 
beginning of such a voyage of exploration there 
are apt to be smiles at the eager zoologist 
emerging pale from his laboratory, but after 
the first time the trawl comes on board with 
its wonderful burden of living things of every 
colour and shape, each more quaint or beautiful 
than its neighbour, everybody on board becomes 
almost as enthusiastic as the zoologist who, 
now that he has got his sea-legs, feels himself 
more on an equal footing with his breezy sea- 
man companions. 

Off Coats Land, the highest southern lati- 
tude in which a vertical net has been success- 
fully used, it is recorded by Wilton in the 
Zoological Log of the "Scotia" ^that the haul 



ANIMAL LIFE 163 

was a rich one, containing five species of fishes, 
and at least fifteen species of other animals, 
including "several examples of Salpa, four 
species of crustaceans, many specimens of Sagitta, 
several ctenophores, four species of medusoids, 
and some broken pieces of a jelly-fish." The 
examination of these specimens found in the 
vertical net on this occasion is a very useful 
indication to the reader of what "drifting life," 
or plankton, is in Antarctic seas, and one wonders 
at the delicate nature of most of the forms 
captured in these waters, which are at or about 
the freezing-point of fresh water, and often 
considerably below, especially when one knows 
that a considerable number of these forms 
must have been taken near the surface, where 
the ice-pack grinds and crushes in aU its fury 
during violent storms. 

So much for the zoology of Antarctic seas. 
One thing is perfectly clear, and that is that 
there is an immense field for most interesting 
exploration of the most useful kind open to 
those who wish to explore in the South Polar 
Regions. There is no form of exploration 
more fascinating and more important than 
oceanography — ^physical and biological — in any 
part of the world, and in no region is it more 
interesting and important to carry on these 
investigations than in the seas round about 
the South Pole. Interesting as is the explora- 



164 POLAR EXPLORATION 

tion of Antarctic lands, the exploration of 
Antarctic seas is not less so. 

Neither is the exploration of these seas ac- 
companied by fewer privations, difficulties, and 
dangers. In recent years no one has had a 
more exciting or adventuresome experience than 
Captain Adrien de Gerlache, during that 
remarkable drift in the South Polar pack for 
nearly a whole- year, when human beings for 
the first time spent a winter in the Antarctic 
Regions. The adventures of the relief party 
of the Swedish Expedition are unsurpassed 
in the history of Polar exploration. Caught 
in the pack, their ship, the Antarctic, was crushed 
like a match-box, and left them stranded on 
the pack many miles from land. With almost 
superhuman effort they reached the land, but 
cut off from two men they had landed at another 
place with a tent and a few days' provisions, 
and without having been in sight of the main 
encampment that they were to relieve. It 
was about twelve months before these three 
parties were to meet together, and, wonderful 
to relate, they and the Argentine relief ship 
Uruguay all met within a few hours of each 
other. Lastly, the world has learnt of the 
difficulties and dangers that the gallant French 
explorers had under the able leadership of Dr. 
Jean Charcot, who hammered out the Western 
record to 124° W. along the 70th degree of south 



ANIMAL LIFE 165 

latitude, knowing that the ship's keel and plank- 
ing had been ripped off on the rocks of the west 
coast of Graham Land {Le Pourquoi-pas ? dans 
V antar clique, by Dr. Jean Charcot: Paris, 1910). 
The biology of Antarctic seas is perhaps 
more interesting and important than that of 
Arctic seas for reasons which will be afterwards 
considered. Although a great deal of zoological 
research has been carried out in the Arctic 
seas from time to time, that research had been 
much less systematic than in the Antarctic 
Regions, because in the Arctic Regions it began 
before zoology was organised as it is now. 
At a period when practically no research was 
being carried out in Antarctic seas, many of 
the earliest writers have given descriptions 
of northern invertebrates. Martens, for in- 
stance, gave excellent descriptions of the animals 
he saw in Spitsbergen, both on the land and in 
the sea, during his voyage in 1671. Not only 
his text, but his excellent drawings show what 
an accurate and close observer he was : he has 
fair pictures of seals and walruses, remarkably 
good drawings of the Greenland whale, and 
a number of interesting ones of invertebrates 
such as Gorgonocephalus, two other ophiuroids, 
a Caprella, two medusoids, also the well-known 
pteropod (Clio borealis), all of which can easily 
be identified. After Martens, there are no 
very accurate descriptions of Arctic marine 



166 POLAR EXPLORATION 

invertebrates until the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. At this time Scoresby was 
one of the best observers. The first man to 
give us a concrete idea of animals that lived 
in the deep Arctic waters was Sir John Ross, 
who initiated his nephew, James Clark Ross, 
in that work which, as already mentioned, 
he afterwards carried out successfully in Ant- 
arctic seas. Baron Nordenskjold did ; , really 
good systematic marine zoological work ; and 
after him Payer and Weyprecht, during the 
German Expedition of 1870 to East Greenland 
and the Austrian Expedition of 1874 to Franz 
Josef Land. In 1897 the author brought home 
large zoological collections from Franz Josef 
Land. Major Andrew Coats' expedition to 
the Barents Sea and the Prince of Monaco in 
Spitsbergen seas in 1898 also carried out im- 
portant marine biological research. During that 
year and in 1899, 1906, and 1907 the Prince 
of Monaco and Dr. Jules Richard trawled, 
trapped, and tow-netted several times in high 
latitudes and deep water in the Greenland Sea. 
Since 1898 many others, including the Duke 
of Orleans, Nathorst, and Amundsen have 
done similar work, so that altogether we have 
a very considerable knowledge of the fishes 
and invertebrates of the Greenland, Spitsbergen, 
and Barents Seas, as well as those of Davis 
Strait and some of its sounds. 



ANIMAL LIFE 167 

One of the characteristics of the Arctic, like 
the Antarctic, marine fauna is the enormous 
number of individuals of certain species, 
specially some of the amphipods, copepods, 
and echinoderms. Two species of amphipods 
(Anonyx nugax and Onissimus edwardsii) 
swarm in such quantities in Arctic seas that 
the carcase of a large bird will be entirely- 
cleared of soft parts by them, and a well- 
cleaned skeleton is left in twenty-four hours. 
Such a tough morsel as a bear's skull, if lowered 
into water of 10 or 20 fathoms, will be beau- 
tifully cleaned in the matter of a few days. 
Naturalists have often resorted to this method 
to help them in their work. 

In a depth of 197 fathoms at the entrance 
of Ice Fiord, Spitsbergen, the Prince of Monaco 
obtained in a trap no less than forty pounds 
of large, red prawns (Pandalus borealis), alto- 
gether 1,775 specimens ; not only were these 
prawns interesting zoologically, but they were 
found to be an excellently delicate food, and 
were used on board for that purpose. A sea- 
urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) is enor- 
mously plentiful, and so are some species of 
brittle-stars. The water teems with pteropods, 
especially Clio borealis, the food of the Green- 
land whale, and arrow-worms (Sagitta, with their 
transparent houses. In the Barents Sea I 
have gathered a pound or more of small co- 



168 POLAR EXPLORATION 

pepods {Calanus finmarhicus) in my tow-net in 
the space of a few minutes. These enormous 
swarms of animal life form the basal food supply 
of the myriads of birds, and herds of seals and 
walrus, and the numerous whales. And it should 
always be remembered that man himself, when 
the worst comes to the worst, can find abundant 
food in the small crustaceans of the sea, if he 
has any means of catching them. 

Though collecting animals and plants that 
live in Polar seas, and enumerating species 
is of great interest, much more than that is 
required of the modern biologist. He must 
try to find out what is the reason of there being 
certain species in Polar seas, of there being such 
enormous numbers of certain species, and the 
relationship which this marine life has to marine 
life in other seas. It is of immense interest 
when we discover facts regarding life in Polar 
seas that have a distinct bearing on human 
economy. A beginning of such discoveries has 
already been made, although we stiU see "as 
through a glass darkly." 



CHAPTER VII 

PHYSICS OF THE POLAR SEAS 

The first step in marine biological investi- 
gations, whether in the Polar sea or elsewhere, 
is the study of the physical conditions under 
which the marine forms of animals and plants 
live, and correlation of these observations in 
various seas. Hence the study of the physics 
of the oceans as a whole is most important, and 
it becomes the duty of a Polar explorer to carry 
on that research in the Polar seas. The first 
essential in any form of oceanic research, after 
knowing one's position on the earth's surface, 
is to know the depth, and if this has not already 
been determined one must take a "sound- 
ing." To be able to sound accurately in all 
depths is the first accomplishment of the prac- 
tical oceanographer. In the Arctic Regions 
bathymetrical survey has been of the most 
irregular and piecemeal character, although on 
the whole we have now a fairly complete knowl- 
edge of the conformation of the floor of the 
North Polar Basin and the seas adjacent. Most 
of these soundings have been secured in the 
course of ordinary navigation, but Sir John 
169 



170 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Ross and his nephew took a number of 
soundings in a thoroughly systematic way. 
During recent years we have a good line of 
soundings across the Polar Basin taken by 
Nansen and Sverdrup during the drift of the 
Fram. The author took a large number of 
soundings during 1896, 1897 and 1898, on board 
the Windward and on board Major Andrew 
Coats' yacht Blencathra in the Barents Sea, 
from the shores of Europe to Novaya Zemlya 
and Franz Josef Land, and between Hope Island 
and Spitsbergen almost up to Wiche Islands. 
The Prince of Monaco and the Duke of Orleans 
have made series of interesting and important 
soundings between Spitsbergen and Greenland 
as far as 81° N., while Baron Nordenskjold, 
Leigh Smith and Makarof have sounded to the 
north of Spitsbergen. Amundsen, Sverdrup and 
others have taken soundings in the straits and 
sounds of the islands of the Canadian Arctic 
Archipelago. The most important work done 
by Peary during his last expedition was a 
series of soundings along his route to the 
North Pole which indicated more or less 
the conformation of the Polar Basin accord- 
ing to ideas established largely by Nansen's 
soundings. But it is most unfortunate that 
in the most important of these soundings 
Peary did not actually touch bottom. It 
would have been of more interest than any 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 171 

other observation that this Polar enthusiast 
could have taken at the North Pole, had his 
lead touched bottom, and had he brought back 
a sample of the deposit at the bottom of the 
sea at the Pole itseK. 

In the Antarctic Regions there has been 
a much more systematic bathymetrical survey, 
because, with the exception of Ross, practically 
no soundings were taken until the Challenger 
sounded in the vicinity of the Antarctic Circle 
off Termination Land. Before Ross, the early 
South Sea voyagers had no conception of deep- 
sea soundings. Weddell sounded in 71° 25' S. 
"The water again being discoloured," says 
Weddell {A Voyage towards the South Pole, 
1827), "we sounded with 240 fathoms of line, 
but got no bottom, though I am of opinion it 
would have been obtained at a greater length 
of hne ; but as we had no more, nor a lead 
sufficiently heavy, we could not be so experi- 
mental as I wished." According to the Scotia 
soundings there was a depth here of about 
2,000 fathoms, and no doubt Weddell little 
guessed how much "greater length of line" 
he would have required to touch bottom. All 
the recent Antarctic expeditions have taken 
soundings in Antarctic and subantarctic seas, 
but by far the most important series taken 
are those of the Scotia. Altogether the Scotia 
took seventy-five deep soundings in the South 



172 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Atlantic Ocean, and Weddell and Biscoe Seas, 
besides nearly five hundred soundings in the 
neighbourhood of the South Orkneys in water 
of less than 100 fathoms. Twenty-six of the 
seventy -five deep-sea soundings were taken south 
of the Antarctic Circle, and fifty were taken 
whilst navigating actually in the pack ice ; 
forty-three were taken in water exceeding 
2,000 fathoms, twenty -three in water exceeding 
2,500 — ten of the last being south of the Ant- 
arctic Circle. The deepest sounding was 2,900 
fathoms, or a depth of three miles and a quarter, 
in 39° 27' S., 5° 17' E., between Gough Island 
and Cape Town. 

The Valdivia carried out an important bathy- 
metrical survey to the south-east of South 
Africa and the Challenger and the Gauss farther 
to the eastward. The Belgica and Pourquoi- 
pas ? took a number of soundings from Graham 
Land to 124° W. between 69° and 71° S., which 
are of great importance, most of them being 
between 200 and 300 fathoms and indicative 
of the presence of continental land not very 
far to the south in these longitudes. The great 
interest of the Scotia soundings, along with the 
discovery of Coats Land, was to give an entirely 
new idea of the southward extension of the 
Weddell Sea, and to alter previous ideas of 
the depths of that sea which were all based 
on a very deep sounding taken by Ross in 68° 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 173 

32' S., 12° 49' W., which was believed by him 
to be "4,000 fathoms no bottom," but which 
was proved by the Scotia to be 2,660 fathoms, 
the Buchanan sounder bringing up "blue mud." 
Ross's error was due to the very primitive 
gear he had on board for so great a depth. 
Instead of working with a compact machine 
from the ship itself, and having the valuable 
assistance of steam, and instead of working 
with apparatus that has taken sixty years 
to bring to its present state of perfection, this 
old veteran and pioneer of deep-sea exploration 
did wonderful work with very rude apparatus 
and gave us much information about ocean 
depths in many parts of the world. Ross did 
aU his sounding from boats lowered for the 
purpose, and his hemp line was laboriously 
hauled in by hand on large cumbersome drums 
by his crew. This example of patience and 
endurance deserves all praise, and it would be 
well if it were followed in these days. Ross's 
line evidently sagged, after the weights had 
touched the bottom — if they touched at all — 
the line being carried away by the strong cur- 
rents that exist in that region, currents which 
prevented the Scotia trawl from reaching bottom 
on three occasions in spite of extra weights 
being attached and a large amount of extra 
cable being paid out. 

A theory has been advanced by Dr. H. O. 



174 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Forbes (Supplementary Papers, Royal Geographi- 
cal Society, 1893) that there existed at one 
time a land connection between New Zealand 
and Eastern Australia by way of the Chatham 
Islands and Antarctica, and also that there 
had been a connection between Madagascar 
and South America and Antarctica. The sound- 
ings of the Scotia substantially support the 
latter part of Forbes' theory by showing the 
existence of a long ridge or "Rise" (a "rise" 
is a ridge rising up from the bottom of the ocean 
to within 2,000 fathoms of the surface), about 
300 miles in breadth, extending in a curve from 
Madagascar to Bouvet Island, and from Bouvet 
Island to the Sandwich Group, where there is 
a forked connection through the South Orkneys 
to Graham Land, and through South Georgia 
to the Falkland Islands and the South Ameri- 
can continent. Thus Antarctica, South 
America and Madagascar, and probably South 
Africa, become connected with one another 
in a most direct manner by this "rise." As 
Dr. Pirie has pointed out, the existence of sedi- 
mentary rocks in the South Orkneys, as well 
as in South Georgia, points to a much greater 
extension of land to the southeast of South 
America in former times. The Scottish Expe- 
dition made another great discovery, namely, 
that the " Mid- Atlantic Rise" extended 1,000 
miles farther south than was previously sup- 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 175 

posed, and that in all probability it connected 
at its southern extremity with the rise between 
Bouvet Island and the South Orkneys and 
South Georgia. This extension of the Mid- 
Atlantic Rise is now known as the "Scotia Rise." 

These investigations tend to show a separa- 
tion between the "deeps" ("deeps" are those 
parts of the oceans which are deeper than 3,000 
fathoms) discovered by the Valdivia lying to 
the south-east of Bouvet Island, which may 
be suitably known as the "Ross Deep," and 
the deep lying to the south-west of South Africa, 
as well as that deep lying to the north of South 
Georgia and to the east of Argentina ; all these 
"deeps" are separated from one another by 
"rises" of less than 2,000 fathoms. 

The work of the Challenger, Valdivia, Gauss 
and Scotia in the South Atlantic and South 
Indian Oceans has given us a clue to the possi- 
ble connections between Africa, South America 
and Antarctica, and now it is of great interest 
and importance to get more soundings to the 
south of Australia and New Zealand, to show 
more exactly what the conformation of the 
floor of the ocean is in those longitudes. That 
is one of the most important investigations for 
future Antarctic exploring ships to carry out. 

The bathymetry of the Arctic Ocean is simple 
compared with that of the Antarctic Ocean, 
and consists of a basin almost completely sur- 



176 POLAR EXPLORATION 

rounded by land, which does not appear to be 
anywhere much deeper than 2,000 fathoms, 
the three deepest soundings taken by Nansen 
and Sverdrup being 2,195 fathoms, 2,102 
fathoms, and 2,020 fathoms. Unfortunately, 
in the three soundings these explorers took 
between 15° E. and 70° E., including the farthest 
north one, they did not succeed in reaching the 
bottom, these three soundings being "1,638 
fathoms no bottom." Within five geographical 
miles of the Pole Admiral Peary obtained a 
sounding of " 1,500 fathoms no bottom." Where 
the North Polar Basin is not bounded by land, 
as at the Behring Straits and between Spits- 
bergen and Greenland, it is bounded by ridges 
of considerably less than 2,000 fathoms in depth. 
The researches of the Duke of Orleans and the 
Mylius Erichsen Danish Expedition tend to 
show that a ridge covered by quite a small 
depth of water exists between Spitsbergen and 
Greenland. 

A proper conception of the bathymetry of 
Polar seas is necessary for an adequate dis- 
cussion of physical problems connected with 
the temperature, salinity, specific gravity and 
circulation, and the effect of wind, air-tempera- 
ture and other phenomena that affect these 
seas. The physical problems of ice-covered 
seas are much more complicated than in seas 
where there is no ice, because, as we have seen 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 177 

previously, when the surface of the sea is being 
frozen over, the salt in that part of the water 
which is changed into ice is thrown out and 
must therefore make the neighbouring water 
more saline ; on the other hand, when that 
ice melts during the following summer it adds 
a considerable amount of fresh water to the 
sea in its neighbourhood. 

The Salter water would naturally have a 
higher specific gravity than the fresher water 
but it is not unlikely that the fresher water 
produced from melting ice may, by virtue of 
its being colder than the neighbouring more 
saline water, actually have a higher specific 
gravity. The presence of icebergs, which in 
the south are of enormous size and very nu- 
merous, and which even in the north are very 
numerous in certain districts, must produce an 
enormous amount of fresh water during the 
summer and quite sufficient to affect the 
salinity of the sea where they occur. One 
of the most interesting features of Arctic 
waters, especially between Greenland and Spits- 
bergen and to the north of Spitsbergen well 
into the Polar Basin, is the existence of an 
intermediate layer of comparatively warm water 
in the Arctic Ocean between the surface colder 
water and the colder water beneath. This 
was observed as far back as the beginning of 
the nineteenth century by Scoresby and sub- 



178 POLAE EXPLORATION 

sequently by many other observers, among 
whom are Admiral Markham, Mam-y and Leigh 
Smith, and in more recent years by Nansen, 
the Prince of Monaco, the Duke of Orleans, 
the author, and many others. A century ago 
Scoresby said, "On my first trial, made in the 
summer of 1810, in latitude 76° 16' N., longi- 
tude 9° E., the temperature at the depth of 
1,380 feet (230 fathoms), was found to be 33.3° 
(by the water brought up), whilst at the surface 
it was £8.8°. Li nearly twenty subsequent 
experiments, an increase of temperature was 
in like manner discovered on bringing water 
from below, or on sending down a register ther- 
mometer to a considerable depth. In one 
instance (the latitude being 79° N. and longi- 
tude 5° 40' E.) there was an increase of 7° of 
temperature on descending 600 feet ; and in 
another series of experiments, near the same 
place, an increase of 8° was found at the depth 
of 4,380 feet (730 fathoms)." Recent Scan- 
dinavian observers tend to claim this as a special 
discovery of their own, and have omitted any 
reference to the work of former explorers, and 
in the case of one man, Benjamin Leigh Smith, 
this is especially ungracious. 

Leigh Smith was one of the first to carry 
out investigations on this intermediate warm 
layer in a systematic manner during his cruise 
in Spitsbergen seas in his 80-ton schooner Samp- 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 179 

son in 1871. Leigh Smith's observations were 
some of the earHest, and were most important ; 
but, owing to his modesty, they have not been 
taken sufficient notice of either in Britain or 
abroad ; Scandinavian oceanographical investi- 
gators have been especially remiss in this direc- 
tion. "Honour where honour is due !" so 
we wish here to honour this gallant Arctic ex- 
plorer — the hero of five Arctic voyages, the 
discoverer and cartographer of the western 
half of Franz Josef Land, the most remarkable 
leader of a band of men, whose ship was crushed 
in the ice off Franz Josef Land and went down 
in a quarter of an hour. Leigh Smith, most 
ably supported by Dr. W. H. Neale, afterwards 
wintered with his twenty-five men in an im- 
provised hut with practically no food but bear 
and walrus, and during the following summer 
effected his own relief by conducting those 
twenty-five men — loyal because of their trust 
in him and love for him — in open boats among 
the Polar pack to Novaya Zemlya over a dis- 
tance of 500 miles during six weeks. And, let 
all Scandinavian ocean physicists especially 
remember, that Leigh Smith was the saviour 
of Baron Nordenskjold's expedition of 1872-73 
from starvation and death in the north of Spits- 
bergen, and by his good mapping the able guide 
of Nansen and Johansen in the last lap of their 
remarkable journey across the Polar Basin. 



180 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Let these Scandinavians remember what Nor- 
denskjold, the greatest of Scandinavian explorers, 
afterwards Tvrote, when the Swedish expedition 
had separated from Leigh Smith, namely, that 
"it was he who was to render it (the Swedish 
expedition) so great a ser\'ice, and bind its 
members to him for ever in the bond of grati- 
tude and attachment" ; and again, when 
Nordenskjold says, "May we be permitted 
pubKcly to express the deep gratitude of all 
of us to ]\Lr. Leigh Smith for the costly and 
welcome gift, and to assure him that it will 
be long before the members of the Swedish 
Polar Expedition of 1872-73 forget the Diana's 
\dsit to Mussel Bay." 

It is not creditable to Britain that this most 
worthy and modest Englis hm an has never 
received acknowledgment of his distinguished 
ser\aces in Polar exploration by the Govern- 
ment of his own country. 

This intermediate warm layer of water, at 
least in the region of the Greenland Sea and 
to the north and east of it, appears to be due 
to the warm water of the Gulf Stream, which, 
ha"\dng gi'eater density due to its salinitj^ dips 
underneath the upper colder layer, forming a 
distinct intermediate stratum. With all due 
respect to certain scientific people who deny 
that the Gulf Stream reaches the shores of 
Britain and Spitsbergen, I consider it quibbling 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 181 

to deny its existence and call this well-known 
phenomenon by some other name. Surely the 
finding by Torell in Spitsbergen in 1861 of the 
West Indian Bean Entada gigalobinum is suffi- 
cient evidence alone — call it drift, current, 
stream, or what you will. To the Gulf Stream 
is largely due the open conditions of the seas 
on the west of Spitsbergen, and, under certain 
conditions, north-eastward even to the north 
of Novaya Zemlya and the shores of Fran25 
Josef Land ; it also influences to a considerable 
extent the climate of western Europe and 
Britain, keeping the Norwegian fiords free of ice 
throughout the winter. 

Relative to investigations on the influence 
of the Gulf Stream on the Polar Basin, is work 
done in what one might call a subarctic region, 
namely in the Faeroe Channel, diu-ing the cruises 
of the Lightning and Porcupine in 1868 and 
1869, where the flow of the Gulf Stream is north- 
eastward across the ridge, between the Faeroes 
and Iceland. In more recent years, the Scottish 
Fishery Board cruisers have made additional 
more detailed investigations as well as the 
Norwegian Fishery steamer Michael Sars. Many 
of the most important and interesting problems 
regarding the physics of Arctic seas circle round 
the influence of the Gulf Stream. 

The intermediate warm layer of water is 
not peculiar to the Arctic Regions. "The 



182 POLAR EXPLORATION 

common feature of Antarctic water found by 
all expeditions," says Mr. J. Y. Buchanan, 
"is the thick warm layer lying between a cold 
layer at the surface and another cold layer at 
the bottom." 

The intermediate warm layer in glacial seas 
was found by the Challenger in her Antarctic 
cruise. Although she was furnished only with 
the "Millar-Casella" thermometer, a protected 
maximum and minimum thermometer of the 
Six type, by the skilful handling of this instru- 
ment her staff was able to make a perfect ther- 
mometrical survey of the water from the surface 
to the depth where the maximum temperature 
of the first warm layer was found, which was 
at 200 fathoms, and to fix the superior and 
inferior limits to the temperature of all the 
water below (Challenger Report-Narrative, vol. i, 
Part I, p. 419). 

Buchanan points out that, "One of the strik- 
ing features of the ocean discovered by the 
Challenger expedition was the extensive area 
of very cold water which occupies the bottom 
of the sea from the east coast of South America 
to the ridge which runs north and south in the 
meridian of the island of Ascension. Here the 
bottom temperature was found to be 32.5° F. 
The existence of this exceptionally cold bot- 
tom water was discovered on the outward 
voyage in soundings near the Brazilian coast. 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 183 

so that the expedition was prepared to take 
up the study of it on the way home. This 
was done very thoroughly on a Hne from the 
mouth of the River Plate along the parallel 
of 35° to the meridian of Ascension. The depth 
of water varied from 1,900 to 2,900 fathoms, and 
the distribution of temperature in the water 
was, roughly, a warm surface layer of perhaps 
100 to 200 fathoms, then a thick layer of water 
of temperature about 36° F. down to 1,600 
fathoms near the coast, and to 2,200 fathoms 
or thereabouts at sea. Here was a steep tem- 
perature gradient falling away rapidly from 
35° to 33° F. and more slowly to 32.5° F. The 
occurrence of the steep gradient shows a renewal 
of the water and therefore a current. The 
observations of the Valdivia show a similar 
distribution in latitude 60° to 63° S., with this 
difference — that the surface layer is colder than 
the intermediate, being about 34° F. The 
bottom layer has as low a temperature as 31.5° 
F." Unfortunately at that time there were 
not enough determinations of temperature of 
the deeper layers to indicate the gradient which 
separate the cold bottom water from the com- 
paratively warm intermediate water, but now 
the additional observations taken on board the 
Scotia, Gauss and Antarctic should help to fill 
up the gap. The results of the extensive ob- 
servations by these three expeditions will be 



184 POLAR EXPLORATION 

an undoubted aid towards the solution of the 
meaning of this very cold water at the bottom 
of the ocean off the east coast of South America 
northward toward the equator. The lowest 
bottom temperatures obtained by the Scotia 
were 28.9° F. in 2,550 fathoms in 63° 51' S., 
41° 50' W. ; 30.95° F. in 2,547 fathoms in 64° 
24' S., 48° 18' W.; 31.0° F. in 1,775 fathoms 
in 62° 10' S., 41° 20° W. 

The bottom temperatures taken by the Scotia 
farther south are considerably higher, and in 
the vicinity of where Ross thought he had 
"4,000 fathoms no bottom," namely, in 68° 
32' S., 12° 49' W., the Scotia obtained a bottom 
temperature in 2,485 fathoms of 31.5° F. 

It is very tempting to suppose that, like 
the Gulf Stream in the north, there is a warm 
highly saline current pushing southward along 
the surface from the Atlantic, which dips under 
the colder but less saline water on the surface 
of the Antarctic seas, and that getting cooled, 
this water sinks whilst abutting against the 
Antarctic continent, and by the ever-flowing 
southward upper current is pushed northward 
underneath along the floor of the ocean, finding 
its way into the deeps to the east of South 
America. The Scotia salinity observations also 
seem to support this theory, especially the 
record in 159 fathoms two miles off Coats Land, 
But this hypothesis is here given with all cau- 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 185 

tion, as the results of the observations of this 
and the other expeditions have not yet been 
fully investigated. 

On board the Challenger Buchanan ascer- 
tained that this exceptionally cold bottom 
water near the coast of South America had 
a very high density, and this was confirmed 
by the observations of the Gazelle. "It is 
this density at constant temperature which 
decides whether a water can carry its surface 
temperature down to great depths, or whether 
it shall remain at the surface, and it is the 
annual range of temperature of such water 
which gives it its penetrating power" {Proc. 
Royal Society, 1875, vol. clvii). 

I have specially referred to this cold water 
at the bottom of the deep waters of the 
Atlantic Ocean off the South American coast 
as an example of the intimate connection of 
Antarctic phenomena with those of other parts 
of the world, for here the interesting question 
arises. How far does this cold Antarctic water 
flowing northward at the bottom of the At- 
lantic Ocean (if the conclusion is correct on 
the evidence we have at our disposal) not 
only affect the temperature, salinity and 
oxygenation of the waters of the Atlantic 
Ocean, but also, how far does it bring with 
it forms of Antarctic animal life, which help 
to populate the deep waters of the Atlantic 



186 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Ocean in the \'icinity of the equator ? The 
question is an intricate one, and its solu- 
tion will be largely helped by such work as 
the writer wishes to undertake in a second 
Scottish Antarctic Expedition, when an inves- 
tigation of those seas which lie between the 
chief field of work of the Scotia, namely, 
the Weddell Sea, and that of the Challenger 
south of 40° S., is suggested as an important 
part of the programme. 

This idea of the spread of animal life from 
the Poles to the equator is not new. Professor 
J. Arthur Thomson points out that "The gen- 
erally accepted view is that the deep sea 
did not become a possible home of life until 
perhaps Cretaceous times, until the Poles 
cooled and the cold water rich in oxygen 
sank to the great depths. The affinity be- 
tween abyssal animals and those found in 
shallower water in boreal seas has often been 
pointed out, and it is probable that the deep 
sea was largely peopled from the poles, or in 
any case from the shores" (The International 
Geography, 1907, p. 92). 

That there is a strong underflowing current 
south of 70° S. in the vicinity of Coats Land 
is certain, for on three occasions the Scotia's 
trawl was prevented from reaching the bottom, 
evidently having been swept by such a current. 
It is not unlikely that it is the cooled inter- 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 187 

mediate layer that has sunk to the bottom 
which is being swept northwards towards the 
equator into the deep abysses of the Atlantic 
Ocean to the east of the South American 
coasts. There are many other fascinating prob- 
lems of oceanic circulation that can only be 
solved by more extensive deep-sea research in 
the South Polar Regions. 

There is little doubt, for instance, that there 
is a strong inflow of warm water between lon- 
gitudes 170° E. and 180° E. where no ship has 
ever had any diflBculty in reaching almost 
78° S. Every ship that has ever tried has 
always been able to reach the foot of Mount 
Erebus and Mount Terror between these lon- 
gitudes with comparative ease. Ross took the 
Erebus and Terror, and since then the Ant- 
arctic, the Southern Cross, the Discovery, the 
Morning (twice), the Terra Nova and the Nim- 
rod have had the same experience, and now 
Captain Scott, doubtless with equal ease, if 
he sails between these longitudes, will take the 
Terra Nova again to McMurdo Strait without 
encountering any formidable pack ice. Captain 
Armitage has told me that on board the Dis- 
covery during her voyage southward along this 
route he had no ice navigation, except for a 
day or so in the vicinity of Cape Adare, and 
even that could have been avoided had he 
kept the vessel farther off the land. In spite 



188 POLAE EXPLORATION 

of so many expeditions choosing this, the 
easiest route to the far south in Antarctic seas, 
we have not many serial sea temperature ob- 
servations in these longitudes ; consequently 
there is a fine field of work for future explorers, 
who are in command of well-equipped oceano- 
graphical ships, and whose programme, differ- 
ing from the plans of previous expeditions 
to this region, is the exploration of the sea 
rather than the land, for this land has become 
specially well known owing to the splendid 
efforts of Scott and Shackleton. 

Just as there are e^'idently inflows of warm 
water and outflows of colder water in Ant- 
arctic seas, so are there similar phenomena 
in Arctic seas. Reference has already been 
made to the Gulf Stream. One of the most 
marked of the cold currents is the East Green- 
land current, which has been known for a long 
time. Scoresby in 1823 pointed out that this 
main current along the eastern coast of Green- 
land "sets to the south-westward." He also 
pointed out a periodical offset and inset that 
occurred. Leigh Smith says, "Down the east 
coast of Greenland there is an Arctic current 
about 200 miles broad, bearing on its surface 
a mighty floating glacier, which extends to 
Cape Farewell, a distance of 1,400 miles. The 
rate of this current is variously estimated from 
5 to 15 miles a day." Captain David Gray 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 189 

in 1874, on board the Eclipse, records : "July 
24th — Found by to-day's observations that we 
have driven forty-three miles S. by W. hall 
W. true, in the past three days, and that in 
the face of fresh winds from S.W." The drift 
of the crew of the Hansa, 1869-70, also fur- 
nishes concrete proof of this current. 

Thanks to this current flowing right across 
the North Polar Basin from east to west the 
Fram was able to drift across. It was owing 
to the same current that the relics of the 
Jeannette, wrecked to the north of the New 
Siberian Islands, were carried down the east 
coast of Greenland round Cape Farewell, and 
reached Julianshaab on the west coast of Green- 
land three years after the wreck of the Jean- 
nette. The latest researches on this current were 
those made on board the Duke of Orleans's 
yacht, the Belgica. These observations add 
very materially to our exact knowledge of this 
interesting phenomenon. 

A similar current runs south-eastward along 
the coast of Labrador and brings the Polar 
pack down to Newfoundland considerably south 
of the latitude of the south of Britain. This 
is an excellent example of the economic im- 
portance of having an accurate understanding 
of the laws of oceanic circulation in the Arctic 
Regions and their relationship with neighbour- 
ing seas and coasts. 



190 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Antarctic deep-sea deposits (Scotia Deep-Sea 
Deposits, by Dr. J. H. H. Pirie, Scot. Geog. 
Mag., Aug. 1905) furnish very strong evidence 
of the existence of a large continental land- 
mass around the South Pole. The chief re- 
search in this direction has been done by the 
Challenger, the Valdivia, the Belgica, the Gauss, 
the Antarctic, and the Scotia, and recently by 
the Pourquoi-pas ?. From the results of these 
expeditions we find that between 40° S. and 55° 
S. there is a broad band of globigerina ooze, 
with patches here and there in deeper water, 
far from the land, of red clay. To the south 
of this band there is a band of diatom ooze 
to which reference is made in another place. 
This band forms a complete circle, generally 
speaking, between 55° S. and 60° S. We notice, 
however, that the band becomes very narrow 
in the Drake Strait, halfway between South 
America and Graham Land, where it stretches 
only between 58° and 60° S. On the other 
hand, it widens out very much to the south of 
South Africa, where the band stretches from 
about 44° S. to 60° S. To the east of this it 
appears to dip southward in the neighbour- 
hood of Enderby Land, but otherwise the dis- 
tribution is much as has been already described. 
It would be of immense interest to dwell at 
length upon this remarkable deep-sea deposit, 
which is the most characteristic deposit of the 



PHYSICS OF POLAR SEAS 191 

Antarctic and subantarctic Regions, and which 
does not occur in other parts of the world except 
to a quite insignificant extent in certain places. 
To the south of this belt or band of diatom 
ooze we have a continuous ring south of 60" 
S., which is a deep-sea deposit of blue mud. 
In the Weddell and Biscoe Seas we have a 
small patch in the blue mud region which 
seems to be a sort of mixture of blue mud 
and red clay, and which is associated with the 
area of deep water mapped out by the Val~ 
divia and the Scotia. A special point of 
interest in this blue mud deposit is found on 
examining maps of deposits in different parts 
of the world, when it is found that this deposit 
is always associated with continental lands. 
It occurs round the whole of the coasts of South 
and North America ; round the coasts of 
Europe, Asia, and Africa. There is, in fact, 
no continental coast which is not bounded 
by blue mud. The natural inference, there- 
fore, is that when we find blue mud surround- 
ing an area of land about the South Pole that 
it is there in association with a great mass of 
continental land. It may here be mentioned 
that this blue mud has one character which is 
not common to other regions where that deposit 
occurs, for during the cruise of the Scotia there 
were taken up with the trawl many tons of 
subangular rocks, some of them weighing fully 



192 POLAR EXPLORATION 

two to three cwts. The distribution, in the 
Weddell and Biscoe Seas of these great boulders, 
which show glacial erosion in having had their 
corners ground off, indicates that they have 
doubtless been carried out to the deep water 
of the Weddell Sea at the bottom of great 
icebergs that once formed part of, and have 
been calved from the great ice-sheet that prob- 
ably flows northward from the South Pole over 
the Antarctic continent and finally break off 
at ice-faces bounding the Weddell and Biscoe 
Seas. Nothing would be more tempting than 
to discuss at greater length these deep-sea 
deposits, but that must be done at another 
time and in another place. Meantime the im- 
portant feature to remember is the diatom ooze 
at the bottom of the Antarctic and subantarctic 
seas and the blue muds in the vicinity of all 
known Antarctic lands, indicating a greater 
extension of those lands and the existence of 
a great Antarctic Continent, further proof of 
which has already been given. 



CHAPTER VIII 

METEOROLOGY 

Not the least interesting study of the Polar 
Regions is from the meteorological aspect, and 
this seems to be especially so in the case of 
the Antarctic Regions. It seems extremely 
likely, if a set of permanent stations were es- 
tablished in the Antarctic Regions, with first- 
class equipment, thoroughly trained observers 
and not too few of them, that we might find 
the key for forecasting the weather not only 
of the southern hemisphere, but also, at least 
to some extent, that of the northern hemis- 
phere also. One of the triumphs of the Scot- 
tish Expedition (1902-1904) was the meteoro- 
logical work, and this was due to the fact that 
the Scotia had on board such an eminent prac- 
tical meteorologist as Mr. Robert C. Mossman. 
Mr. Mossman conducted the chief meteoro- 
logical station in Edinburgh ; he had, besides, 
extensive practical experience of work on the 
summit of Ben Nevis, and at the head of Glen 
Nevis. The Glen Nevis station was especially 
for the study of the Fohn winds. Before Mr. 
Mossman joined the Scotia, his field work and 
193 



194 POLAR EXPLORATION 

publications had placed him in the van of 
European meteorologists. Mr. Mossman was 
supported by two other trained meteorologists 
— the author, who had had experience for nearly 
two years at both high and low level Ben Nevis 
observatories, and who had been in charge 
of the summit observatory for more than a 
year, besides having had previous meteoro- 
logical training and experience, and Mr. D. W. 
Wilton, who had also worked as an observer 
at both Ben Nevis stations, and who had been 
in charge of a smaller observatory half-way 
up the Ben for some months. 

Thus, not only were there three thoroughly 
trained meteorologists on board the Scotia, 
a condition of eflBciency not approached by 
any other Antarctic expedition, but each one 
of the three had experience of taking observa- 
tions amid conditions of continual ice and snow. 
One had had experience of taking meteorological 
observations during long periods both in the 
Antarctic and Arctic Regions, and a second 
had had experience of taking meteorological 
observations for fifteen months in the Arctic 
Regions. Besides these three, Captain Robert- 
son had taken meteorological observations in 
the Arctic and Antarctic Regions during many 
voyages. These facts are mentioned to em- 
phasize the importance of the Scotia meteor- 
ology, which has been enhanced by the fact 



METEOROLOGY 195 

that the results have been worked up by the 
man who conducted the work in the field, and 
who remained in the Antarctic Regions for 
another year, in the service of the Argentine 
Republic, after the Scotia had sailed for home. 

Mr. Mossman has, since the completion of 
the Meteorological Reports of the Scotia, re- 
joined the Meteorological Service of the Argen- 
tine Republic, and a special part of his work 
there is in connection with the working up of 
the results of the Scotia Bay Station, which 
that energetic South American Republic has 
continued to support and direct during the past 
six years. The results of this work are already 
being felt. Before the Scotia had left the Ant- 
arctic Seas, Mr. Mossman was able to demon- 
strate meteorologically the existence of the 
land reported by Johnson and Morrell, extend- 
ing northward to about latitude 65° S. in longi- 
tude 44° W., where both Ross and Crozier 
reported an "appearance of land," and where 
Nordenskjold's people on board the Antarctic 
also had possible "appearance of land." Nor- 
denskjold dismisses the idea of land here because 
an iceberg was actually mistaken for an island 
at one time, and because of the depth obtained, 
viz. 2,031 fathoms. But Nordenskjold, accord- 
ing to his chart, was at least 40 miles farther 
off the point where Ross and Crozier reported 
"appearance of land," "land blink," etc. (Pre- 



196 POLAR EXPLORATION 

liminary Chart, shoiving the Track of the 
" Antarctic" in Antarctica, by Dr. N. Otto G. 
Nordenskjold and Dr. John Gunnar Andersson : 
London, 1905). The depth also is quite sig- 
nificant of land in these regions, for the Scotia 
obtained 1,746 fathoms fifteen miles off Coro- 
nation Island, and 2,370 fathoms only sixty 
miles off Coats Land. IMr. Mossman has 
pointed out that at Scotia Bay, South Ork- 
neys, "the warmest winds are N.W. and N,, 
and the coldest S. and S.E., there being a 
difference of 21.7° between the warmest and 
coldest directions. It is of interest to note 
the great difference between the temperature 
of west and south-west winds. On the mean 
of the seven months the south-west is 16.5° 
colder than the west, while in June the difference 
was as much as 22.2° F. 

"From these observations it appears prob- 
able that there is a mass of land, the northern 
extremity of which is in lat. 65° S., long. 44° 
W., both Morrell and Ross having referred 
to an 'appearance of land' in this region. The 
circumstance that 'Fohn' winds blow from the 
west doubtless partly accounts for their rela- 
tively high temperature ; but there are other 
reasons, notably the comparatively high baro- 
metric pressure experienced with south-west 
winds, which indicate a local anticyclone in 
winter such as would form over a land surface." 



METEOROLOGY 197 

Since that time, with the additional data 
furnished by the Scotia Bay Station during 
eight years, it has become more than ever 
certain that New South Greenland, as Johnson 
called it, really exists. The meteorological 
observations of the Scotia have also helped 
to prove that Coats Land is part of the 
Antarctic Continent. 

If no other results of the Scotia meteorology 
than these two had been obtained, it would 
be acknowledged that those results were very 
valuable indeed. But Mossman has also found 
that there is a distinct relationship between 
the weather in Chile and the weather in the 
Weddell Sea. This is one of the most valuable 
economic results of the voyage of the Scotia. 
I will even venture to predict that the observa- 
tions carried on at Scotia Bay, along with those 
in South America and South Africa, will be 
found most valuable in predicting the condition 
of the monsoons in India. Should this prove 
to be the case, it can then be said that the 
study of meteorology in the Antarctic Regions 
can be used for the alleviation of human suffer- 
ing by enabling us to give sufficiently long 
warning to our fellow citizens of the Indian 
Empire to prepare for failure of crops, and 
ward off starvation and ruin. 

The meteorological work of the Scotia has 
alone been mentioned, and that is because it 



198 POLAR EXPLORATION 

is generally acknowledged that this work con- 
ducted by Mossman is the most important 
of all the meteorological work carried out by 
any of the Antarctic expeditions. But all 
the recent Antarctic expeditions have taken 
very careful series of observations, and these 
taken along with the Scotia observations form 
a most valuable addition, not only to our 
knowledge of Antarctic weather conditions, 
but to the meteorology of the world. Since 
the establishment of the Scotia Bay Observa- 
tories, the Argentine Republic have set up 
another station on South Georgia, and have 
considered setting up yet another on the west 
coast of Graham Land where De Gerlache 
and Charcot have done such very excellent 
meteorological work. Charcot's observations, 
having been synchronous with those at Scotia 
Bay and South Georgia, are very important. 
There is little doubt that more of these per- 
manent stations in other parts of the Antarctic 
and subantarctic Regions working in conjunc- 
tion with the two already mentioned and with 
the observatories not only in South America, 
but also in conjunction with those in South 
Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, would 
be a most valuable form of Antarctic explora- 
tion that would greatly increase our knowledge 
and benefit humanity. 

It is not necessary to enlarge on the scientific 



METEOROLOGY 199 

value of such a network of meteorological 
stations in the southern hemisphere, where, 
on account of the huge expanse of ocean, at- 
mospheric conditions are simphfied and there 
are not so many of those disturbing conditions 
which upset the most careful calculations in 
the northern hemisphere, where the oceans 
are of less account, and only serve to separate 
from one another land masses of varying size 
and character. If all the surface of the globe 
were water or land of uniform altitude, meteor- 
ology would be simplicity itseK, but as it is, 
it is one of the most complex sciences existing. 
It is, therefore, very essential to concentrate 
our energies on those parts of the terrestrial 
globe where conclusions are most likely to be 
arrived at concerning the general laws which 
govern the climate and weather of the world. 
In the far south the conditions are simpler 
than in any other part of the world, hence the 
importance of making a special study of meteor- 
ology round about the South Pole. 

It is not so easy to place an economic, or even 
a scientific, value on the meteorological work 
that has been done in the North Polar Regions. 
It is very difficult to analyse properly Arctic 
observations, owing, as before stated, to the 
more complex distribution of land and water 
in that region. But there is no doubt that 
one of the difficulties is the desultory fashion 



200 POLAR EXPLORATION 

in which meteorological investigation has been 
carried out in the North Polar Regions, the 
international co-operation of 1881 and 1882 
being the only instance where a systematic 
attempt was made to study the meteorology 
of the Arctic Regions as a whole, and even these 
stations were not in existence for a long enough 
period. Yet it was largely the study of these 
records that enabled Nansen to plan his expe- 
dition in the Fram, and to venture to boldly 
thrust his ship into the ice-pack, confident 
that the drift would carry it right across to the 
open water at the other side of the Pole. Peary, 
in his many sledging expeditions from the north 
coasts of Greenland and Grant Land towards 
the Pole, found the ice-floes always moving 
eastward, indicating a drift of the Arctic water 
in that direction. There is no doubt that a 
systematic study of the winds of the Arctic 
and subarctic Regions in relation to their cyclonic 
and anticyclonic systems is of the utmost im- 
portance, as upon these winds depend very 
largely the direction and flow of Arctic currents 
and Arctic ice-pack. Given prevailingly north- 
east winds over Franz Josef Land, even if they 
afe very light, then the polar pack comes driving 
past that archipelago, not only the north but 
also the south of it by the straits between it 
and the north of Novaya Zemlya. Jamming 
against the east coast of Wilczek Land, and 



METEOROLOGY 201 

against the north end of Novaya Zemlya, this 
southern pack sweeps westward across the 
northern portion of the Barents Sea, and, bring- 
ing up against the east coast of Spitsbergen, 
is forced past South Cape, and, during some 
summers Hke that of 1910, round South Cape, 
fiUing up Bell Sound and other western fiords 
in Spitsbergen with ice. On the other hand, 
if there is a prevalence of south-east winds 
in the Barents and Greenland seas, this pack 
is driven back, and the coasts of Spitsbergen, 
and even the southern shores of Franz Josef 
Land, are free of ice. This was the case in 
Franz Josef Land during the summer of 1897, 
and even during the previous midwinter, when 
there was open water to within a quarter of 
a mile of Cape Flora, on the 24th of December, 
1896. On the contrary, the wreck of Leigh 
Smith's yacht, the Eira, off Cape Flora in 1881, 
was due to a change of balance between the 
easterly and westerly system of winds, which 
caused the polar pack rapidly to close in upon 
the vessel, and crush it against the land floe. 
Leigh Smith had foreseen this, for he well knew 
how the movements of the pack depended on 
the wind, and, had his instructions been car- 
ried out, the Eira would not have been lost. 

That part of the current which passes to the 
north of Franz Josef Land from east to west, 
and which is largely dependent on the wind, 



202 POLAR EXPLORATION 

was the current that carried the Fram across 
the Polar Basin from the New Siberian Islands 
to the north-west of Spitsbergen. Now these 
easterly and north-easterly winds that have 
been spoken of are the outflowing winds of 
the Eurasian anticyclone, as are the north- 
west winds blowing across the Himalayas and 
continuing as the north-east monsoons of India, 
and which prevail during January and Feb- 
ruary over India, that is, during the same time 
as the easterly and north-easterly breezes of 
the Arctic Regions. Now January and Feb- 
ruary is the period of the greatest intensity 
and extension of the great anticyclone, an inti- 
mate study of which from the North Pole to 
the tropic cannot fail to be of the greatest 
possible value for an accurate knowledge of 
that part of the terrestrial globe which con- 
tains about three-quarters of the inhabitants 
of the world. The ice movements which 
troubled Peary, and made his earlier attempts 
futile, and added difficulty and grave risk to 
his last successful journey to the North Pole, 
are also ultimately caused by the winds flowing 
from the great winter anticyclone of northern 
Asia. 

This one example is a striking illustration 
of the value of Arctic exploration from a meteor- 
ological standpoint. During any northern winter 
if this Eurasian anticylcone from some cause 



METEOROLOGY 203 

or other is not so intense or so extensive in 
area, it means that there is a breakdown of 
the north-east monsoons in India, and a break- 
down of the north-easterly system in the Barents 
Sea. Hence, we have this further relationship, 
that if there is a breakdown of north-east mon- 
soons in India, there is a minimum amount of 
pack ice in the Barents Sea and on the shores 
of Spitsbergen, which reminds one of Mossman's 
dictum, that the failure of the winter rains on 
the coast of Chile, south of lat. 33°, means 
that the Weddell Sea is comparatively clear 
of ice. 

It must be emphasised that well-trained 
meteorologists are essential for conducting thor- 
oughly satisfactory observations, for there are 
many errors that unguided amateurs are apt 
to commit, however conscientious they may 
be in the task set them. 

The selection and setting up of instruments, 
either on board ship or ashore, is important. 
Before the departure of the Scotia I was aware 
that temperature observations on board ship 
were often vitiated by the warmth from the 
ship itself according to the relative direction 
of the wind. Yet, in spite of this well- 
known fact, I have not known any other ship 
but the Scotia fitted out with a double set of 
thermometers, one on the port side and the 
other to starboard. This was the arrangement 



204 POLAR EXPLORATION 

which Mossman, at my suggestion, adopted. 
Another important consideration in the placing 
of thermometers on board ship is to see 
that they are placed in a thoroughly exposed 
position in good louvred screens, which can 
get a free breeze across them : not up against 
a bulkhead or under a bridge or any other such 
place. On the Scotia they were fitted up against 
stanchions on each side of the quarter on the 
poop deck, about five feet above the level of 
the deck, and projecting as much as 18 inches 
clear of the ship's side, where they were in an 
absolutely open position. 

When the temperature observations were 
being made the dry and wet bulbs on both 
sides of the ship were read, and the readings of 
those on the weather side were recorded as 
the correct ones. It is interesting to note that 
errors of several degrees were observed on the 
leeside thermometers on many occasions, es- 
pecially when the Scotia was in high latitudes 
and low temperatures prevailed. Furnaces, gal- 
ley and cabin stoves, and the general higher 
temperature of the ship itself all affected the 
readings. On rare occasions when the wind 
was absolutely ahead, and it was thought that 
both the port and starboard thermometers might 
be affected, Mossman used sling thermometers 
on the foc'sle head, but these, as a rule, did 
not vary a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit from 



METEOROLOGY 205 

the lowest reading of the quarter thermometers. 
Furthermore, when the Scotia was wintering 
in Scotia Bay, and when there was a regular 
series of meteorological instruments set up in 
thorough observatory fashion ashore, it was 
found that the weather-side deck thermometers 
compared absolutely with those on shore, 

"Except on rare occasions," says Mr. Moss- 
man, "one side of the ship was definitely a 
weather and the other a lee side. It may be 
worthy of notice that there was usually a differ- 
ence of one or two degrees between the weather 
and the lee side of the Scotia, the instrumental 
readings on the lee side being affected by heated 
currents from the cabins and engine-room, — ■ 
hence the importance of having thermometer 
screens on both sides of the poop. On one 
occasion the lee side was as much as 5° warmer 
than the weather side, and on another occasion, 
during a calm, a difference of nearly 10° was 
noted." 

A further check was afforded by the records 
of three Richard thermographs, which gave 
continuous records of temperature. Some little 
trouble was at first experienced by Mossman 
with the wet bulb thermometers, due to saline 
accretions on the muslin and bulb of the instru- 
ment, such as are formed on every exposed 
part of a vessel at sea. The result was that 
in the course of a week or so a coating of salt 



206 POLAR EXPLORATION 

formed round the bulb which could with difficulty 
be removed by scraping with a knife, or took 
some time to dissolve even when the thermom- 
eter was soaked in tepid water. But by chang- 
ing the water in the reservoir frequently, and 
placing a fresh piece of muslin on about once 
a week, thoroughly satisfactory results were 
obtained, the wet bulb being further syringed 
daily with distilled water. The Richard hair 
hygrograph was employed as a check, so that 
any serious discrepancy between the two in- 
struments was at once apparent. For measure- 
ment of the intensity of solar radiation a black 
bulb thermometer in vacuo was employed. 
This was fixed in a stand secured to the bridge 
in such a position that the sun could shine on 
it as nearly as possible at aU hours of the day. 

Two barometers of the new marine pattern 
were in use : one being placed in the deck lab- 
oratory at a height of seven feet above the 
sea, while the other was a spare instrument 
and was kept aft in the cabin. Three self-record- 
ing Richard barographs yielded continuous traces 
of barometric pressure. One of the late Dr. 
Black's marine rain-gauges was placed aft on 
the poop well clear of the deck. Its position 
was changed occasionally as circumstances arose, 
in order that it might always be on the weather 
side. The exposure — taking into account the 
various difficulties attending rainfall observa- 



METEOROLOGY 207 

tions at sea — ^was a very good one, as the gauge 
was never sheltered by the sails. The thickness 
of the rainband in the spectrum of sunlight 
was taken daily at noon, and the temperature 
of the sea surface was observed every four 
hours, and at more frequent intervals when 
rapid changes were in progress. 

For ascertaining rapid fluctuations of the 
atmospheric pressure a Richard statoscope was 
employed ; this is really an extremely delicate 
recording aneroid, in which changes of pressure 
are magnified twenty -five times. This instru- 
ment was also used for recording the height 
of waves. A chart put into motion by clock- 
work receives a trace of the pressure-fluctuations 
due to the rise and fall of the waves, the height 
of which could thus be calculated. Attempts 
were also made to fly kites for recording meteoro- 
logical observations at high altitudes, but it 
was found difficult to get the kite clear away 
from the ship owing to eddies formed by the 
heavy masts, yards and rigging of a full-barque- 
rigged ship, although several of us were quite 
proficient in getting kites clear away from a 
small steamer which had less heavy rigging. 
Another drawback was that the speed of the 
Scotia was scarcely sufficient under some con- 
ditions to keep the kites flying well. It may 
be noted that Mr. John Anderson, the pioneer 
of meteorological kite-work in Scotland, had 



208 POLAR EXPLORATION 

equipped the Scottish Expedition with a small 
machine for reehng in the piano wire attached 
to box-shaped kites of the Blue Hill pattern. 
Specially constructed meteorographs, made of 
aluminium, were carried up by the kites, on 
which a record of the vertical distribution of 
pressure, temperature, and humidity was graphi- 
cally recorded. 

While mentioning this high-altitude equip- 
ment on board the Scotia, it is appropriate to 
refer to the splendid services the Prince of 
Monaco has rendered meteorology in the North 
Polar Regions by the use of kites and balloons. 
The author had the advantage of accompany- 
ing the Prince on three of his voyages to the 
north-west of Spitsbergen, and of assisting him 
in making these observations. 

"The launching of a kite," says the Prince 
of Monaco ("Meteorological Researches in the 
High Atmosphere," Scot. Geog. Mag., March 
1907), "from a ship is always a delicate opera- 
tion, and one which demands experience on 
account of the vortices found in the aerial wake 
of the ship, of which those visible in the aqueous 
wake are the image. Often when the apparatus 
has reached a height where it appears to be 
out of danger it may be caught by one of these 
risky vortices and precipitated into the sea. 
In stormy weather such a catastrophe may 
occur even after the kite has risen to a height 
of several hundred metres. 



METEOROLOGY 209 

"When the wind is strong enough and the 
bridle (the object of which is to keep the face 
of the kite to which it is attached horizontal) 
is not very exactly balanced, the kite at once 
executes plunging zigzag movements which may 
produce such a strain as to break the line. When 
the kites have reached the greatest altitude 
permitted by the circumstances, the paying out 
of the wire is stopped, and, either by increasing 
the speed of the ship, or by heaving in the wire 
as quickly as possible, a Uttle final augmentation 
of height is obtained. The recovery of kites, 
although somewhat dehcate, presents less diffi- 
culty than their dispatch. As at the launching 
of the kite, a subsidiary line is used, which 
is run alongside of the bridle as soon as this 
is got hold of, so as to limit the motions of the 
kite. 

"Unfortunately, even with the greatest care, 
accidents occur." Five or six or even more 
kites may sometimes be attached one after the 
other along the wire. Should the kite and 
instruments fall into the water, "it is interesting 
to note that the curves furnished by our instru- 
ments can resist a prolonged immersion without 
suffering damage when they meet with such 
an accident. The curve is a line traced by the 
pen on a layer of lamp black, deposited on the 
cylinder by the smoky flame of a petroleum 
lamp. In a case of inunersion the carbonaceous 



210 POLAR EXPLORATION 

particles disappear, but an excessively thin 
coating of grease, deposited with the carbon 
from the flame, remains and the line traced by 
the point of the pen is clearly visible in it with 
a magnifying glass. 

"A notable instance occurred during one 
of my earliest experiments in the Mediter- 
ranean in 1904. An instrument was lost to 
the northward of Corsica, and was found on 
the shore of Provence fifteen days later. The 
curves traced in the greasy film on the recording 
drum were still perfectly visible, and were 
utilised with the others in Professor Hergesell's 
laboratory. 

"A kite operation, at a height of 3,000 to 
5,000 metres, lasts almost the whole day, and 
the ship, which must at times steam full speed 
(the yacht Princesse Alice attains a maximum 
speed of 13 knots) in order to enable the kites 
to pass through zones of light wind or of calm, 
may easily cover a distance of 50 or 60 miles 
during the operation." 

But, besides kite observations at high altitude, 
the Prince of Monaco has made some very re- 
markable investigations in the Arctic Regions 
by means of small balloons, which he terms 
" ballons-sonde" which carry up instruments, 
and which, by several different ingenious de- 
vices, he recovers again. He has also made 
many valuable observations, by means of pilot 



METEOROLOGY 211 

balloons, which he has succeeded In following 
to the stupendous height of 97,700 feet, or 
49| miles from the surface of the earth, that 
is, three and a third times as high as the summit 
of Mount Everest — the highest mountain in 
the world. 

After carrying on numerous investigations 
in the Mediterranean and in the North-east 
Trades, the Prince of Monaco in 1906 pro- 
ceeded on his third voyage to the Arctic Regions, 
his destination being the Greenland Sea off 
the north-west of Spitsbergen. In Spitsbergen 
itself, he was to land a Scottish party under 
the author's leadership for the detailed survey 
of Prince Charles Foreland, and a Norwegian 
party under Captain Isachsen for the survey 
of part of the mainland ; while he himself, 
associated with Professor Hergesell of Strasburg, 
was to explore the higher atmosphere. On 
July 13, 1906, I have interesting recollections 
of being one of a party of three, the other two 
being Professor Hergesell and Captain H. W. 
Carr, R.N.R., for so many years the Prince's 
commander and aide-de-camp, who conducted 
the theodolite work ashore at Deere Sound 
(recently erroneously called King's Bay), whilst 
the Prince of Monaco was on board the Princesse 
Alice, attending to the liberation of a pilot 
balloon — ^the first that was ever set free in the 
Arctic Regions. While Professor Hergesell fol- 



212 POLAR EXPLORATION - 

lowed continuously the ever-ascending balloon 
with the theodolite telescope. Captain Carr and 
I were reading the vertical and horizontal limb 
of the theodolite and recording our synchron- 
ous observations. Knowing its ascensional force 
Professor Hergesell was able to calculate the 
course and altitude of the balloon, which reached 
a height of 26,050 feet, where a W.N.W. wind 
was blowing at the rate of 28 metres per second. 
The weather was clear, calm, and sunny, and 
gave a very good opportunity to carry out this 
series of observations in a thoroughly satis- 
factory manner. 

During this interesting investigation of the 
atmosphere the Prince of Monaco was much 
hampered in carrying out his programme by 
persistent fogs over the sea to the westward 
of Spitsbergen, although in the bays and on 
the land the weather was magnificent. Thus 
the dispatch of " hallons-sonde" which the pre- 
liminary experiments in the Mediterranean had 
rendered perfect of execution was stopped by 
this insurmountable difficulty. Twice only was 
it possible to dispatch them. Nevertheless, 
the information received was very valuable, 
since the registering instrument brought back 
curves from an altitude of 24,600 feet in lati- 
tude 78° 55' N. 

In this Arctic voyage the Prince had to 
resort to a new method on account of the con- 



METEOROLOGY 213 

stant presence of clouds which were down to a 
very low level although the horizon was clear, 
a condition that often . prevails both in the 
Arctic and Antarctic Regions : this method 
allowed of a certain amount of exploration 
of the atmosphere though not so extensive 
as the method employed when the sky was 
cloudless, or when only detached clouds were 
present. The balloon was furnished with means 
capable only of taking it to such an altitude 
that it could regain the surface of the sea at 
a distance which does not exceed the limits 
of visibility. The ship is then stopped on the 
spot where the balloon was started, and atten- 
tive observers watch all directions in order to 
detect its return from above the clouds. One 
experiment of this kind that the Prince made 
succeeded perfectly, and the balloon, which 
had reached a height of 15,750 feet on a day 
when the sky was completely covered by very 
low clouds, was detected and recovered at a 
distance of twelve miles. 

But the most remarkable results the Prince 
of Monaco has attained have been with pilot 
balloons. "These balloons," says the Prince, 
"which are small enough to be embraced by the 
arms of a man, have been followed with a special 
theodolite to the extraordinary altitude of 
29,800 metres (97,700 ft.), if it is assumed that 
their velocity of ascent increased a little with 



214 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the change of density of the atmosphere in the 
most elevated regions ; or at the very least 
to an altitude of 25,000 metres (82,000 ft.). 
Further, the one which attained this height 
was, at the moment of its disappearance, at a 
distance of 80 kilometres (49| miles) from the 
observers. So remarkable a result is explained 
by the transparency of the atmosphere in the 
Arctic Regions, a transparency which, under 
other circumstances, permitted us to follow 
distinctly on the snow of a glacier, at a distance 
of 40 kilometres, the movements of a party of 
four persons whom I had sent on a mission of 
exploration in the interior of Spitsbergen." 

This translucency of the atmosphere is a 
well-known character of the Polar Regions. 
Captain Armitage says, when the Discovery 
was off Cape Washington, Victoria Land, "the 
atmosphere was exceedingly clear, as may be 
imagined from the fact that we could plainly 
see Coulman Island and Mount Erebus at the 
same time, although they are 240 miles distant 
from one another." In Spitsbergen, at sea- 
level, I have seen the mountains on the south 
side of Bell Sound from the north end of Prince 
Charles Foreland quite clearly — a distance of 
100 miles ; and I could quote many other in- 
stances of extraordinary visibility. The only 
comparison in temperate climates is from moun- 
tain tops : from the summit of Ben Nevis I 



METEOROLOGY 215 

have seen at one time the Black Isle and the 
waters of the Moray Firth, the Pentland Hills 
(or Arthur's Seat), Barra Head (100 miles 
distant), and the coast of Ireland (120 miles 
distant), though it is unlikely that one could 
ever see Ben Nevis from sea-level at Barra 
Head. 

"The information furnished by the pilot 
balloons, which carry no instrument because 
they are sacrificed, concerns questions of capital 
importance for meteorology — the direction and 
the velocity of the upper currents. Now our 
pilot balloons of 1906 have taught us that there 
exist in the Arctic Regions in the neighbour- 
hood of the 80th parallel, at a height of about 
13,600 metres (44,600 ft.), certain winds of 
60 metres per second (132 miles per hour), a 
force of which we have no equivalent at the 
surface of the globe. Their direction was 
S. 68° W." 

The Prince of Monaco made thirty explora- 
tions of the high atmosphere in the Arctic 
Regions in the vicinity of Spitsbergen in 
1906, and, in carrying out this work, added 
more to our knowledge, not only of the 
meteorology of the Arctic Regions, but also of 
our knowledge of the meteorology of the 
world than almost any recent investigator. 
This is more especially the case because before 
and since he has carried out further exten- 



216 POLAR EXPLORATION 

sive exploration of the upper atmosphere 
in the North-east Trades and in the Medi- 
terranean, which can be correlated with the 
valuable work he accomphshed in the Polar 

Regions. 



CHAPTER IX 

MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 

Almost every important recent Polar expe- 
dition that has set out for work extending over 
twelve months, has laid itself out to make a 
study of the magnetic conditions either of the 
Arctic or Antarctic Regions. The two polar 
ships that have been specially equipped re- 
cently for taking magnetic observations on 
board were the Discovery and the Gauss, upon 
which large sums of money were spent to secure 
a special area of the ship free of local magnetic 
influences. No other polar ships have ever 
been equipped so particularly in this direc- 
tion, though many others, notably the Erebus 
and Terror in the Antarctic Regions, did a con- 
siderable amount of magnetic work. Recently 
the Carnegie Institution at Washington have 
fitted out a magnificently equipped non-mag- 
netic sailing ship, the Carnegie, which is carrying 
out work of the highest importance in the form 
of a magnetic survey of the seas of the world. 
Unfortunately this fine ship does not appear 
to be fitted out for navigation in ice, conse- 
quently this important survey must remain 
217 



218 POLAR EXPLORATION 

incomplete until some munificent millionaire 
resolves similarly to equip and endow a ship 
to complete the work by carrying out a sys- 
tematic magnetic survey of the seas of the Arctic 
and Antarctic Regions. 

But although so little has been done with 
regard to magnetism in polar seas, yet a very 
considerable amoimt has been done in polar 
lands. All the recent Antarctic expeditions 
carried out magnetic observations on land. 
The station set up by the Scottish Expedition 
in the South Orkneys has now conducted 
observations there continuously during the 
last eight years, thanks to the energy of Mr. 
W. G. Davis and the Government of the Argen- 
tine Republic. It is of interest to note that 
Sir James Ross, serxdng under his uncle Sir 
John Ross, was the first to take magnetic 
observations at the North Magnetic Pole, in 
1831, and that Mr. D. Mawson, serving under 
Sir Ernest Shackleton, was the first to take 
magnetic observations at the South Magnetic 
Pole, in 1909. Though it is a matter of satis- 
faction to have the British flag hoisted in both 
magnetic poles of the globe, the intrinsic value 
of the observations taken there is not very 
great from a scientific standpoint, as Mawson 
himself points out, since they are only single 
isolated observations, but the good series of 
observations that Mawson has taken in the 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 219 

neighbourhood of the South Magnetic Pole, 
as well as those of Bernacchi, are of the highest 
possible value. Further observations in circles 
round about the approximate point of each 
magnetic pole would add very much to our 
knowledge of terrestrial magnetism. 

Terrestrial magnetism is altogether a most 
intricate and difficult science, but it is per- 
fectly obvious that one very great use of an 
intimate study of this subject is for purposes 
of navigation. In the days of sailing ships, 
the finest course that was laid till recent years 
was to a quarter of a point or nearly three degrees 
of the circle, nowadays no steamer of any 
importance steers a wider course than one 
degree. The Mauretania, for instance, Captain 
W. T. Turner tells me, "is steered and the 
course set to degrees." In one instance, at 
least, I know of the captain of one liner in- 
sisting on an accuracy of a quarter of a degree, 
the helmsman keeping the course to that amount 
of accuracy by means of a magnifying glass 
placed over the compass card. With fine 
courses, such as those that are necessary 
for the high speeds attained, with the great 
value of these modern leviathans, with valu- 
able cargoes, and with a thousand or more 
human beings on board, it will be seen how 
important an accurate knowledge of terrestrial 
magnetism is. 



220 POLAR EXPLORATION 

There is no more striking or wonderful phe- 
nomenon in the Polar Regions than the aurora — 
Aurora BoreaUs in the north and Aurora Aus- 
tralis in the south. Any one who has wintered 
in the xArctic Regions has had good opportunity 
of witnessing the aurora in all its splendour. 
It is not unknown in Europe during the dark 
winter nights, having been recorded as far 
south even as Italy, Spain and Portugal. It 
cannot, however, be regarded as a common 
phenomenon in southern Europe, and indeed 
does not become frequent until one reaches 
the latitude of the north of Scotland. 

"Loomis and Fritz," says the late Dr. Alex- 
ander Buchan, "have severally investigated 
the geographical distribution of the Aurora 
Borealis. The region of greatest auroral action 
is an oval-shaped zone surrounding the North 
Pole, whose central line, i.e. the more or less 
eUiptical line halfway between the northern 
and southern extension of the zone, crosses the 
meridian of Washington in latitude 56° and the 
meridian of St. Petersburg in latitude 71°. 
It follows from this that am'orse are more frequent 
in North America than in the same latitudes 
in Europe. Loomis points out that this auroral 
zone bears considerable resemblance to a mag- 
netic parallel or line everywhere perpendicular 
to a magnetic meridian," 

"It is a fact of the greatest significance that. 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 221 

as regards geographical distribution, aurorse 
and thunderstorms are complementary, aurorse 
being not more characteristically of polar than 
thunderstorms are of tropical origin ; whereas 
thunderstorms may be regarded as completely 
dissociated from magnetic associations, and 
their periodicities are restricted to diurnal 
and annual variations" ("Aurora Borealis or 
Northern Lights," Chambers' Encyclopedia, 1901). 
At Ben Nevis Observatory auroras have 
been frequently recorded, and indeed on many 
occasions there are very remarkable displays 
to be seen from the summit of that mountain. 
The most frequent form is a low arch of more 
or less elliptical form, rising not many degrees 
above the horizon to the north-west. On more 
than one occasion I have seen perfect coronas 
with their waving bands of streamers darting 
out from the zenith at times almost to the 
horizon. All the displays that I have seen 
on Ben Nevis had the streamers lighted with 
that lurid pale yellowish-green colour that 
every Arctic explorer is familiar with, but on 
one occasion at least there were mingled with 
it flashes of rosy red, which passed along the 
living bands. In Franz Josef Land during 
the winter of 1896-97 there were specially fine 
displays of auroras, and frequent observations 
were made upon them, by various members 
of the expedition. Armitage, who conducted 



222 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the magnetic work, found that the declination 
of the magnetic needle was disturbed by the 
presence of the aurora. 

This interesting observation was by no means 
a new one, for in 1741 Celsius and Hiorter noted 
for the first time the simultaneity of the Aurora 
Borealis and the disturbances in magnetic 
declination. From 1741 to 1747 Hiorter re- 
corded forty-six examples of this coincidence. 
At the suggestion of Celsius, Graham made 
corresponding observations in Britain, and it 
was found that the magnetic disturbances were 
synchronous on the same days in Sweden and 
Britain. These observations were followed up 
by Wargentin, Canton and Wilcke. Wilcke 
found that every time, or almost every time, 
there was a magnetic disturbance, that dis- 
turbance was accompanied by a display of Aurora 
Borealis ; but the inverse was not found to be 
the case, that is to say, the Aurora Borealis 
might be observed without any disturbance 
of magnetic declination accompanying it. Be- 
tween 1771 and 1774 Wilcke proved that the 
inclination of the needle was also affected and 
that the centre of the corona corresponded 
with the magnetic zenith. 

Humboldt, in 1806, discovered that there 
was a relationship between the magnetic force 
and the Aurora Borealis. In 1834 the Mag- 
netic Association founded by Gauss and Weber, 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 223 

and the stations organised by Sabine in many- 
British colonies, multiplied examples of the 
relationship of aurorse and disturbances in the 
three elements of terrestrial magnetism, viz., 
declination, inclination, and intensity. These 
observations showed at the same time the ex- 
treme complexity of the subject. Some of 
the most interesting observations that have 
been made actually within the Polar Regions 
are those of Weyprecht, in the Tegetthof expedi- 
tion to Franz Josef Land. Weyprecht noted 
that during these disturbances the declination 
needle was displaced towards the east, and 
that the horizontal intensity was diminished 
and the vertical intensity increased. Curiously, 
Parry near Melville Island and Port Bowen, 
not far from the Magnetic Pole, never recorded 
any relationship between displays of the Aurora 
Borealis and the movements of the magnetic 
needle. Ross, on the other hand, obtained 
opposite results in the same region, while M'Clin- 
tock and Kane's observations tend to confirm 
those of Parry. No relationship between these 
phenomena appears to have been recorded by 
the British expedition of 1875-76. 

But Armitage says, in Franz Josef Land, 
"I could not avoid noticing the vagaries of 
the magnet, and attributing them to the 
frequent brilliant displays of auroral light 
which held us entranced during our stay in 



224 POLAR EXPLORATION 

the ice-bound North. More especially did the 
magnet appear to be affected when the aurora, 
rising in massive, thick arches from the east- 
ward, and sending up streamers of beautifully 
coloured light, passed rapidly across our zenith 
and disappeared to the westward. . . . The 
magnet would oscillate wildly from side to side, 
or sometimes sheer rapidly to one side only, 
then as suddenly behave in a steady and normal 
manner." Armitage also noted that the most 
brilliant air effects took place during a "furious 
gale" or a "dead calm." 

Buchan has pointed out that "Lemstrom 
has shown, by observations and experiments 
he made at Sodankyla, that aurorse are due 
to currents of positive electricity illuminating 
the atmosphere in their passage to the earth. 
Luminous appearances accompanied the setting 
in of a current towards the earth from the 
network of insulated wires with which he over- 
spread the top of Mount Oratunturi, and this 
light was clearly auroral, giving the hitherto 
enigmatical citron line of Angstrom, which 
is the invariable constituent of aurora radiations. 
Other faint and indistinct lines are enumerated 
as present, and Lemstrom is of opinion that 
there is a tolerable agreement between some 
of these and the lines in the laboratory spectrum 
of rarefied air, but the whole subject demands 
further investigation." 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 225 

Various theories have been advanced to 
account for the occurrence of aurorse, and among 
others has been suggested that the phenomena 
is due to the presence of cosmic dust. This, 
however, does not appear to be at all hkely : 
in all probability it is a purely electric mag- 
netic phenomena. It seems likely that the 
phenomena occurs in other planets than our 
own : it is known that the obscure hemisphere 
of Venus appears to be often illuminated, and 
Winnecke says that this illumination is of a 
greyish violet colour — in this connection it 
is interesting to note that these illuminations 
in Venus were especially observed during the 
years 1721, 1726, 1759, 1796, 1806, 1825, 1865 
and 1871, and that 1726, 1759, 1865, and above 
all 1871, were notable years for the display 
of the Aurora Borealis. 

One of the earliest theories put forward was 
in the middle of the thirteenth century in an 
old Norwegian book called the King's Mirror, 
where one quaintly reads, "Some people think 
that this light is a reflection of the fires which 
surround the seas to the north and to the south ; 
others say that it is a reflection of the sun when 
it is below the horizon ; I think, however, 
that it is produced by the ice which radiates 
during the night the light that it has absorbed 
during the day" {Les Aurores Polaires, by A. 
Angot, 1895). 



226 POLAR EXPLORATION 

The displays of aurora in Franz Josef Land 
during the winter 1896-97 were particularly- 
brilliant and frequent. The usual display con- 
sisted of a series of waving ribbon bands like 
muslin frills, composed of vertical streamers 
in continuous motion, the streamers appearing 
to pass with varying intensity from end to end 
of these flowing ribbons covering almost every 
point of the sky ; every now and then the 
streamers would shoot out to an immense 
length downwards towards the earth and far 
upwards towards the zenith, forming a corona 
from which all the rays that filled the whole 
sky appeared to originate. This coronal ap- 
pearance is probably perspective efiPect, due 
to the enormous length of the shimmering 
rays. The general display of colour was exactly 
the same as has been described at Ben Nevis 
Observatory, but much more intense, and cul- 
minating during the most brilliant periods 
with flashes of emerald green, brilliant crimson, 
and delicate violet hues, which pass from end 
to end of the never-ending, ever-intertwining 
ribbons. It can scarcely be compared with 
any familiar object unless it be to an imaginary 
ballet in the sky, where the figures are in extraor- 
dinarily rapid motion, passing in continuous pro- 
cession, one , line of dancers mingling with 
another, and a series of flashlights of different 
colours passing rapidly across the tinselly muslin 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 227 

drapery. The whole effect is weirdly beautiful, 
and has long been known in the Highlands of 
Scotland by the very fitting name of the " Merry 
Dancers." 

It may be of interest to give one or two 
quotations from my diary when I was winter- 
ing in Franz Josef Land. On January 1, 1897, 
my log runs, "Auroras have been fairly fre- 
quent ; I have not seen one like those I have 
seen at Ben Nevis in Scotland, where you get 
the distinctive arch or series of arches with 
streamers flowing along upward and darkness 
under the arch. One arch I have seen here, 
but not a perfect one, about six weeks ago. 
Within the dark area was the crescent moon 
to the southward. The arch at each end was 
flattened, or rather it was a semi-ellipse or 
such-like. No streamers flowed from the arch, 
it was rather a band than an arch. Here (except 
where there are simple bands, not the most 
general form) the streamers shoot downwards 
from the zenith and dance about in spiral 
waving arrangement. Sometimes there is a 
break between the lower ends of the streamers 
and the zenith, but still the streamers seem to 
continue as if in a line from the zenith or towards 
it." Writing on January 6, 1897, I say of 
the 3rd of January, "although there was fog 
and slight snow, there was a brilliant aurora 
quite lighting up the scene. A very distinct 



228 POLAR EXPLORATION 

shadow was thrown under my hand when 
placed 5 or 6 inches above the ground (snow). 
I have often seen auroras casting shadows here 
and Hghting up the chflfs brilliantly. On the 
evening of the 3rd, at times streamers came 
playing brilliantly through the fog from the 
zenith, gambolling round and looking like 
brilliantly illuminated falling snow. The gen- 
eral impression I have received is that bands 
and collections of streamers have a more usual 
distribution across the zenith from east to west, 
but their directions are very varied." 

On the 24th of January, 1897, at 9 p.m., I 
record "a band of aurora to-night from west- 
south-west to east, throwing up streamers 
toward the zenith. Curious appearance at east 
end being broken up like a very perfect type 
of fine cirro-cumulus cloud, looking as if 
illuminated by brilliant sim to the south- 
south-west ; the band was broad and appeared 
to be crossing some cirrus clouds, and showed 
a mottled appearance. Here the dark portions 
were obviously due to cloud and aurora 
behind them, but to the eastward the cirro- 
cumulus sunlit appearance was, I believe, 
purely auroral. Wilton saw this, to whom I 
pointed it out." 

"I have, on moonlight nights, seen aurora 
and cirro-stratus — one running into the other 
imperceptibly, not being able to tell with abso- 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 229 

lute certainty whether it were cirro-stratus 
with aurora or aurora alone." 

Many other quotations regarding aurora I 
have observed could be made, but these three 
sum up many characteristics not only for 
Franz Josef Land but for other parts of the 
Polar Regions — north and south. 

It has been said that the aurora is accom- 
panied by a crackling sound, but although 
carefully attentive for such a sound none of 
us ever heard it in Franz Josef Land, the opinion 
at the time being that such crackling sounds 
might be due to the crackling of ice and snow 
during an aurora, when there was also intense 
frost — the sound being caused by the frost, 
and not by the aurora. 

So much for the Aurora Borealis with which 
every one who has wintered in the far north 
is so thoroughly familiar. There is a different 
story to be told in the south, where, during 
the two cruises and the wintering of the Scotia 
n6t a single Aurora Australis was seen. Neither 
do the Swedish and French expeditions appear 
to have seen any definite displays of the aurora. 
Dr. Nordenskjold writes to me, saying, "We 
never did see any display of aurora at all during 
the time of our stay in the South, though look- 
ing always for such." Dr. Charcot says, 
" During both my expeditions, 1904 and 1909, 
we had once in 1904 and once in 1909 some- 



230 POLAR EXPLORATION 

thing resembling an aurora, extremely faint, 
and uncertain if they had not been accom- 
panied by magnetic perturbations. We had 
glares of pale green, which might have been 
attributed to auroras, but I really do not think 
they were. The two auroras showed themselves 
in the S.E." On the other hand, the English 
expedition in MacMurdo Sound had frequent 
displays during the whole time the Discovery 
wintered. "On the whole the displays, 
although very frequent, were extremely poor, 
and were generally in the following forms :" 
(1) Faint lights with no defined forms. (2) 
Luminous patches, which frequently presented 
the appearance of clouds. (3) Incomplete 
arcs, or segments of arcs, of which the bril- 
liance was not uniform nor the border regular. 
From these arcs rays would frequently shoot 
up intermittently. (4) Rays, or vertical shafts, 
separated from each other at a greater or less 
distance, frequently described as streamers. 
(5) In one or two exceptional cases irregular 
bands, formed of rays or vertical shafts, pressed 
close together and forming "draped aurorse." 

"The faint lines and luminous patches were 
of the most varied dimensions, sometimes 
very small and at other times occupying 
almost the whole of the eastern (geographical) 
sky ; their brilliancy was rarely much more 
intense than that of stars of the 4th magni- 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES £31 

tude, or even the Milky Way. They formed, 
as it were, a white veil over the sky through 
which stars of small magnitude were plainly 
visible. A clearly defined arc formed of a 
homogeneous luminous mass touching the hori- 
zon at both extremities, was rarely seen." 

"Spectroscopic observations of the auroras 
were not successful, due, apparently, to the 
weak intensity of the light," 

"The observations of atmospheric electricity 
taken during the displays reveal no special 
effect referable to the aurora." 

"An examination of the journal shows that 
the largest number of aurorse occur during 
mid-winter months, June and July." 

Although, on the whole, the displays of the 
aurora seen by the Discovery were extremely 
poor, and mostly straw colour, faint pink and 
green only having been observed on a very few 
occasions, Ross, in the same longitudes, but 
farther to north, had brilliant displays on more 
than one occasion in February and March 1841. 

It is very interesting to get a comparison of 
the Aurora Australia and Aurora Borealis by 
one who has seen brilliant displays of both, 
and in this connection Captain A. B. Armi- 
tage writes to me, saying, "The Aurora Aus- 
trahs could not hold a candle to the Aurora 
Borealis. I never saw colour so brilliant in 
the South as in the North y^ never did light 



232 POLAR EXPLORATION 

emanate from the auroral arches hovering 
over Victoria Land cast a shadow such as did 
the flickering streamers and coruscating coronse 
of Franz Josef Land. In the North, too, I 
have seen the auroral light between me and a 
cliflf 500 feet high and only 100 yards distant. 
I have seen stars of the third magnitude 
eclipsed by it and the moon's light pale before 
it ; not so in the desolate South." 

On March 23rd, Ross says, "Late in the 
evening we crossed the line of no variation 
in latitude 62° 0' S. and longitude 135° 50' E. 
At 7.20 p.m. observed a bright arch of the 
Aurora Australis west-north-west and east-south- 
east extending across the zenith, of a yellow 
colour, its edges tinged with a purple line. . . . 
The lustre of the larger stars was much dimmed 
as it passed over them, but they could be dis- 
tinctly seen through it ; some of the smaller 
stars were totally obscured by the brighter 
and denser portions of the aurora ; this splen- 
did display was, as usual, followed by a fall 
of snow." 

On March 26th, Ross says, "The aurora 
again afiPorded us a considerable light at night, 
in the absence of the moon" ; and again, "On 
the evening of the 27th we witnessed a most 
briUiant exhibition of Aurora Australis. . . . 
Before 10 o'clock bright streamers darted up- 
wards from the cloud to the zenith, forming 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 233 

coronse, and exhibiting bright flashes of all 
the prismatic colours, green and red being 
the more frequent and conspicuous ; this 
aurora had much motion, darting and quiver- 
ing about the sky in rapid flights, and in every 
direction/' 

Rather in contradiction to Buchan's state- 
ment, Ross records, on the 28th of March, 
that "at 10 p.m. a single flash of forked light- 
ning was seen in the north-north-east and at 
the same time an arch of aurora extended across 
the zenith from the horizon west-north-west 
and east-south-east ; it was then blowing a 
strong north-westerly gale." Again, "The 
Aurora appeared in great brilliancy during 
the night of the 30th." Buchan's statement is, 
however, generally speaking correct, this being 
another of those cases illustrating how im- 
possible it is to draw hard-and-fast lines in 
nature. 

The study of tides is an important part of 
Polar exploration, and their study in Ant- 
arctic Regions more generally useful than in 
the Arctic Regions, for in the Great Southern 
Ocean lie the original tides of the world. 

"The Scotia results," says Sir George Darwin, 
"are very valuable as relating to the only 
ocean uninterrupted by land throughout the 
whole circumference of the globe," and they 



234 POLAR EXPLORATION 

acquire much importance when considered 
in connection with the very abnormal results 
obtained by the Discovery. 

At Scotia Bay "the tides seem to be normal 
for a place in the Southern Ocean." 

One of the most remarkable results of tidal 
observations taken in the Antarctic Regions, 
is the belief expressed by Sir George Darwin 
{Proc. Royal Soc, A vol. 84, 1910) that those 
observations taken during Shackleton's expedi- 
tion reveal a sea-seiche. These sea-seiches are 
known to exist in different parts of the world, 
and have been specially observed in many 
Japanese bays ; but Sir George Darwin points 
out that in none of the examples given "has 
the seiche a period at all comparable with 
that of which we have reason to suspect the 
existence in the Antarctic Sea," namely, a three- 
day period. From these observations Darwin 
makes a "guess," and says, "I guess then that 
the bay behind the (Ross) barrier stretches 
past the South Pole and a little to the east 
of it as far as latitude 80°. Such an inlet 
would have a length of 25° to 30° of latitude. 
"A sea of from 100 to 150 fathoms in such an 
immense bay as has been conjectured would 
oscillate with a period of three days, and the 
observed results are seen to be consistent with 
the existence of a deep inlet, almost or quite 
cutting the Antarctic continent in two." 



MAGNETISM, AURORA, AND TIDES 235 

"Such a conclusion is interesting, but it 
would not be right," Darwin wisely adds, "to 
attribute to it a high degree of probability, 
because there are elements of uncertainty on 
every side." Still it is one more of those in- 
tensely interesting Antarctic problems which 
emphasise how much need there is for further 
Polar exploration. 

Tidal observations were taken on board the 
Scotia every half-hour from March 25th to 
November 23rd, 1903, when the ship was frozen 
in in Scotia Bay. The device adopted for 
recording the tides was a simple one. A heavy 
weight with an attached piece of sounding 
wire was lowered over the ship's side, through 
a hole in the ice-floe in which the Scotia was 
frozen, to the bottom, which was here 10 fathoms. 
This wire was led over a block suspended to 
a davit, and at the end of the wire, on board 
ship, a second lighter well-shaped weight with 
a horizontal base was attached, and was sus- 
pended in such a way that it rose and fell up 
and down the face of a wooden scale. The 
floe in which the Scotia was frozen moved with 
the tide, the height of which was thus shown 
by the position of the movable weight on the 
scale. 



r 



CHAPTER X 

AIMS AND OBJECTS OF MODERN POLAR 
EXPLORATION 

The world shrinks and now there are few 
parts of the globe which have not been trav- 
ersed. 

I say purposely traversed, for many parts 
traversed have not been explored. A race 
across Africa, from Paris to Pekin on a motor 
car, or what has been aptly called the "boyish 
Pole hunt," can now no longer be regarded 
as serious exploration. In fact, in Polar ex- 
ploration especially, people are beginning to 
see the comparative uselessness of such journeys, 
and rarely can any Polar expedition get money 
unless the leader announces that such and such 
scientific investigations are to be made by a 
staff of experts, and that such and such scien- 
tific results are likely to accrue. Yet what 
the mass of the public desire is pure sensation- 
alism, therefore the Polar explorer who attains 
the highest latitude and who has the powers 
of making a vivid picture of the difficulties 
and hardships involved will be regarded pop- 
ularly as the hero, and will seldom fail to add 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 237 

materially to his store of worldly welfare ; while 
he who plods on an unknown tract of land or 
sea and works there in systematic and mono- 
graphic style will probably not have such 
worldly success, unless his business capacity 
is such as to allow him to turn to his advantage 
products of commercial value in the lands and 
seas he has been exploring. 

The general rule, however, is that the man 
of science opens the way and reveals the 
treasures of the unknown, and the man of 
business follows and reaps the commercial 
advantage, and where this is not the case and 
the man of science takes to money-making, 
the chances are that the world has rather lost 
than gained by his transition. It is right, 
therefore, that the man of science who has 
not the time or the inclination to devote his 
life to the gathering of gold should look to those 
who have this for their chief aim in life to sup- 
port him in investigations of the unknown, or 
to those who, by the industry of their ancestors, 
have more than is necessary for at least a life 
of comfort. 

In the face of these facts it is interesting 
to note that there are men of great wealth and 
of no narrow interests who nevertheless declare 
that they cannot see the use of such expeditions. 

Exactly the same encouragement that Colum- 
bus received more than four centuries ago ! 



238 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Was there ever a more madcap expedition 
than that one ? A veritable nutshell was to 
sail westward into the unknown and was to 
face dangers beyond all the powers of human 
conception. 

If there is not wealth equal to that of the 
New World of Christopher Columbus, there is 
no reason to suppose that very great wealth 
does not exist in the Polar Regions, consider- 
ing the increased power given to man by the 
advancement of science, which is constantly 
showing new ways and means for discovering 
and making use of Nature's resources. 

So far I have been trying to answer the ques- 
tion which the Polar explorer constantly gets 
asked him by the business man who has not 
had any scientific training, viz. : What is 
the use of these Polar expeditions ? If the 
sole aim is to reach the North or the South 
Pole, or to get nearer to it than any one has 
been before, the answer must be that it is of 
little value either to science or commerce. That 
is the accomplishment of an athletic feat only 
to be carried out by those who have splendid 
physical development. But if it refers to ex- 
peditions well equipped with every means for 
the scientific survey of a definite section of the 
world — be it land or sea — then the answer is 
different. To add to the store of human knowl- 
edge means increased power of adding to human 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 239 

comfort. It also means making another step 
into the forever unfathomable miknown, and 
it is the duty of the scientific explorer as a 
pioneer to investigate a definite area of the un- 
known with a staff of competent specialists. 

Modern Polar exploration must be conducted 
in this manner. Having decided whether one's 
energies are to be applied to the Arctic or Ant- 
arctic Regions, the explorer has to make up his 
mind whether it be land or sea that he is about 
to explore, and, having determined that, and 
being well acquainted with the literature of 
his subject, and having had previous practical 
training in the work he is about to undertake, 
he chooses his definite area. It may be a large 
or a small area. It may be one that has been 
previously traversed and of which a hazy idea 
may be had. It may be over lands untrodden 
by the foot of man or seas as yet unfathomed. 
Suppose it is a detailed investigation of the 
North Polar Basin. The explorer must first 
have a good ship, built somewhat on the lines 
of the Scotia or Fratn, for resisting and evading 
ice pressure, and, following the idea of Nansen's 
drift, he will sail for the Behring Straits, making 
his base of departure British Columbia or Japan. 
Then working northward as far as possible 
through the pack ice, the ship will eventually 
be beset firmly in the autumn or even earlier, 
and, if she be of the right build, with safety. 



240 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Now, as far as the ship is concerned, she must 
be made snug for the winter, and she becomes 
to all intents and purposes a house for the next 
three, or may be four, years. She will drift 
right across the North Polar Basin, and will 
emerge from the Polar pack somewhere be- 
tween Greenland and Spitsbergen. The proba- 
bility is that she will pass almost if not right 
through the position of the North Pole. But 
all this may be counted worthless if there is 
not complete and thorough equipment of men, 
instruments, and other material for scientific 
investigation. The expedition must be for the 
thorough examination of the Polar Basin — 
that is, it must be an expedition fitted out pri- 
marily for oceanographical research. The leader 
of the expedition should be a scientific man, 
and should certainly be one who has gained 
knowledge by having carried on scientific re- 
search in one or more departments in the service 
of some previous expedition. He must also 
be practically acquainted with the handling 
of an oceanographical ship. Without such ex- 
perience, be he landsman or seaman, failure 
must be the result. 

The scientific staff must include well-trained 
men able to organise the work of their various 
departments under the co-ordination of the 
leader. Astronomy ; meteorology, including an 
investigation of the higher atmosphere by means 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 241 

of balloons and kites, as well as sea-level ob- 
servations ; magnetism ; ocean physics, includ- 
ing an investigation of currents, temperature, 
specific gravity at all depths from the surface 
to the bottom ; bathymetry, including a com- 
plete study of the shape of the floor of the Polar 
Basin ; geology, especially a study of the nature 
of the bottom ; biology, an investigation of 
every living thing, those animals that live on 
the bottom of the sea, those who swim on or 
near the surface or in intermediate depths — 
in short, benthoic, planktonic and nektonic 
research ; a study of the algae and animals that 
may be found in association with the ice itself, 
as well as an investigation of every animal 
or plant above the surface of the ocean. Six 
or eight scientific men would not be too few to 
form the scientific staff, and they must be pro- 
vided with at least two laboratories, a scientific 
storeroom, and photographic room. The leader 
himself being well acquainted with conditions 
of work in the Polar Regions, it is not essential 
that the scientific staff should be, but it would 
be an advantage that his chief-of-staff had 
some ice experience, and that he should be able 
to take up the reins in the event of the serious 
illness or death of the leader. The scientific 
side of the ship should be separate from the 
nautical, and the leader must be the inter- 
mediary and guiding hand for both. The 



242 POLAR EXPLORATION 

master of the ship must be subject to the leader, 
and the crew entirely responsible to the master, 
the leader strongly supporting the master in 
this position. It is questionable how far com- 
mercial advantage would be derived from such 
an expedition, probably none immediately, 
though almost certainly some to a future gen- 
eration if not to our own. But the increase 
of human knowledge by the thorough survey 
of a definite area of our globe in a systematic 
manner is sufficient to warrant such an expedi- 
tion being carried out. 

This is the chief piece of work (in the North 
Polar Regions) that remains to be done on an 
extensive scale, and which must extend over a 
long period of time without a break, and it is 
understood that this forms more or less the 
programme of Captain Amundsen, who left 
Norway in 1910, although by telegrams received 
on the outward voyage of the Fram^ which is 
his ship, it appears doubtful whether he is not 
going to confine his attentions to the Antarctic 
Regions instead ! But there is much Arctic 
work to be done in other directions, such as, 
for instance, the work that the Prince of Monaco 
has been carrying on in the exploration of the 
upper atmosphere, or the detailed survey of 
a definite area of land or sea, and general ocean- 
ographical research ; also such detailed survey 
work as has been carried out by the three 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 243 

Scottish Expeditions during the years 1906, 
1907, 1909, in Prince Charles Foreland. (See 
Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. xxii, 1906, 
p. 385 ; vol. xxiii, 1907, pp. 141-156, 319, 490.) 
This island, about 54 miles long and about 
6 miles wide, forms a considerable part of the 
west coast of the archipelago of Spitsbergen. 
Prince Charles Foreland, named after Charles, 
son of James VI of Scotland, has been known 
to exist for more than 300 years, yet there has 
been practically complete ignorance of its 
form, geology, fauna and flora. Ships pass- 
ing fear to approach its coasts on account of 
unknown and often imaginary dangers. Sci- 
ence demanded thorough investigation of this 
unknown land, and some have been trying 
to satisfy this demand of the world of science. 
What is the result ? Already, before the work 
is complete, commerce has followed on the 
heels of science, and before the Scots left the 
island in 1907, Norwegian hunters set up 
three houses for the winter. The Scottish 
Expedition carried on a considerable amount 
of local hydrographic work, especially in Foul 
Sound and in the vicinity of some of the an- 
chorages, and now ships can approach with 
greater safety the coasts of this previously 
unknown land, which, until recently, they 
have justly feared so much. Many other in- 
stances of work of this kind could be quoted 



244 POLAR EXPLORATION 

that have been carried on during recent years 
and is still being continued. Leigh Smith, 
Baron Nordenskjold, Nansen, Nathorst, the 
Prince of Monaco, the Duke of Orleans, and 
Amundsen may be numbered among others 
as pioneers of systematic scientific research in 
the Arctic Regions. 

It would be of interest to take the chart of 
the Arctic Regions and to enumerate the differ- 
ent parts that yet remain to be explored — 
their name is legion. The Beaufort Sea, and the 
islands and channels to the north of the Ameri- 
can continent, offer especially a splendid field 
for topographical, hydrographical, biological, 
geological and other research. Much valuable 
work is to be accomplished by a series of sta- 
tions set up in strategic places for biological 
research, and the same may be said for mag- 
netism and meteorology — especially if associated 
with investigation of the higher atmosphere. 
Denmark deserves great credit for recently 
setting up a biological station in Davis Strait 
in the manner here indicated. This has been 
accomplished by the generosity of Justice A. 
Hoek, and is backed up by an annual grant 
of £600 from the Danish Government towards 
its maintenance (Scottish Geographical Magazine, 
vol. xxi, No. 2, 1905 ; No. 5, 1905 ; vol. xxii. 
No. 4, 1906). Similar stations could with little 
difficulty be set up in Spitsbergen, Franz Josef 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 245 

Land, Novaya Zemlya, and possibly also in 
Jan Mayen, East Greenland, and the shores 
of northern Canada and Siberia. This form 
of research is one of the most valuable forms 
of exploration yet to be accomplished. The 
station should in each case be provided with 
a moderate-sized steam or motor launch. 

Now, turning our attention to the South 
Polar Regions, we find the most interesting 
field in the world for exploration, especially 
with modern methods. Almost everything 
south of 40° S. requires thorough investiga- 
tion and overhauling, and vast stores of informa- 
tion are to be gathered both from sea and land. 
And let us not neglect too much the sea, more 
especially since we are a sea-faring and sea- 
loving nation. The pride and glory of our 
past is largely due to the intrepidity and alertness 
of our seamen. Yet with all this, not only 
the public generally, but even many scientific 
people think much more of an accidental dis- 
covery of land than of any amount of hard, 
plodding work carried on at sea. So much 
so that if an expedition investigates 150 miles 
of unknown land it is said to have made 
"important geographical discoveries," whereas, 
if it investigate, with equal if not greater detail, 
150 miles of unknown sea, it will be said that 
the expedition made "no geographical dis- 
coveries." The reason is that, especially in 



246 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Britain, few people really appreciate a map, 
so notoriously bad is the teaching of geography 
and so little is it encouraged. The ordinary 
atlas simply paints a blue colour over the surface 
of the sea, and will give for its series of special 
maps political land areas, and these even with- 
out any interpretation of the "why" and the 
"wherefore." In these maps care is taken 
to omit as much of the sea as possible com- 
patible with a certain rectangular space, and the 
sea that is shown is merely a meaningless pale 
blue wash. Scarcely any attempt whatever 
is made to show whether these stretches of 
sea are deep or shallow, clear or muddy, brown 
or blue, rough or smooth ; there are few in- 
dications of currents — tidal or otherwise. In 
many ways, in spite of an increasing number 
of scientific ships sailing over the ocean, we 
tend not only to care less and less about the 
sea, but actually in some ways to know less 
about it. To the great 20,000-ton leviathan 
going twenty to twenty-five knots, weather 
conditions, currents, etc., of vital importance 
to smaller and less powerful craft are of little 
significance — these monsters race through every- 
thing. The thousands of passengers in these 
ships make a voyage and know no more about 
the sea over which they have travelled than 
if they had been staying in a palatial hotel 
ashore. In these days ships go on definite 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 247 

tracks and repeat their voyage year after year 
over exactly the same narrow belt of sea ; those 
on board know nothing of the ocean outside 
that belt of 30 miles in breadth. In the old 
days sailing vessels were driven hundreds and 
even thousands of miles off direct tracks, and 
saw actually much more than we do nowadays, 
especially since the vessels were slower and 
smaller, and the surface of the sea more readily 
accessible to those on board. Thus the stories 
of great sea monsters might not be so fabulous 
as supposed, though those in small craft and with- 
out scientific training might possibly get a some- 
what exaggerated idea of their size and shape. 

In the Antarctic and subantarctic Regions 
great opportunities present themselves both 
for a study of the sea and the land, and to the 
writer's mind it is a study of the subantarctic 
and then Antarctic seas that is at present most 
urgent, including an exploration and definition 
of the southern borders of those seas. 

I say, designedly, the southern borders of 
those seas, and not the outline of Antarctica 
or the coast-hne of the Antarctic Continent, 
because it is from the oceanographical stand- 
point that I believe we should make this attack 
in the first place and to a much larger extent 
than heretofore. The early navigators attacked 
the south in this manner, and, more recently, 
with modern scientific methods, the Challenger^ 



248 POLAR EXPLORATION 

Valdivia, Belgica, Scotia and Pourquoi-pas ?, 
Only the last three vessels have done serious 
biological and physical work south of the Ant- 
arctic Circle, and the Scotia alone in the great 
depths in very high southern latitudes. 

More than anything that is required is a 
new expedition on the same lines as the Scotia, 
and the author is ready to organise such an 
expedition as soon as funds are provided. Such 
an expedition should be provided with one 
ship of about 250 to 300 tons register, and should 
carry a complement of about thirty-six men, 
including six men of science. The vessel must 
be provided with all the most modern oceano- 
graphical equipment, and must be prepared 
to work in depths exceeding 3,000 fathoms. 
A definite area must be selected, and I should 
choose for the new Scottish Expedition, which 
hopes to set sail in 1912, the region south of 
40° S. in the South Atlantic Ocean, avoiding 
the tracks of the Scottish National Antarctic 
Expedition in 1902-04, but complementing and 
supplementing the Scotia explorations. A suit- 
able base from which to commence operations 
is Buenos Aires. A start from there should 
be made in the early spring — say not later 
than August 1st — a zigzag course under sail 
could then be steered between latitudes 40° 
S. and 55° S., a visit to Gough Island and 
the other islands of the Tristan d'Acunha 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 249 

Group being included ; a double or treble line 
of soundings, with a regular series of physical 
observations at each station, should be made, 
and the trawl should be lowered two or three 
times every week. No haste is required on 
this voyage ; the vessel would be going before 
the westerly winds under sail the whole time, 
coal being husbanded for handling the vessel 
during sounding, trawling, etc. Cape Town 
would be the first port of call, and thus a belt 
of 1,000 miles in width, over 3,500 miles in 
length would be covered, where (with the ex- 
ception of some soundings and trawlings made 
by the Scotia in 1904) no oceanographical work 
has been done at all. Whilst crossing the 
"Scotia Rise," which the Scottish Expedition 
discovered as an extension of the Mid-Atlantic 
rise 1,000 miles farther to the south, it would 
be interesting and important to attempt by 
means of grippers to obtain samples of the 
rocks in situ of which this rise is built. At 
Cape Town all the scientific material and the 
first copy of the scientific logs should be sent 
home in case of accident to the ship in her 
second voyage, a precaution that should always 
be taken by every expedition. The ship and 
all her gear would be thoroughly overhauled, 
and she would be filled up with coal and pro- 
visions. Her next course would be for the 
South Sandwich Group, and an arrangement 



250 POLAR EXPLORATION 

should be made for a vessel with coal and fresh 
food to meet her there. Here the special 
object is to carry on the bathymetrical survey 
in the region where opinion is divided as to 
whether deep or relatively shallow water exists, 
namely, that portion cautiously marked in 
the Scottish chart {Scottish Geographical Maga- 
zine, vol. xxi, 1905, pp. 402-412) lying between 
the south end of the "Scotia Rise" and the 
Sandwich Group. This is of vital importance 
in the study of continental connections. A 
short time would be spent in the South Sand- 
wich Group, especially with a view of obtaining 
a knowledge of the geology and natural history 
of the islands. Having filled up with coal, 
a cruise eastward to Bouvet Island should be 
made to determine more definitely whether 
or no there is a "rise connection" between 
the Sandwich Group and that island, and also 
with the south end of the "Scotia Rise." From 
Bouvet Island a southerly course should be 
steered towards the southern boundary of the 
Biscoe Sea and a thorough connection made 
between the Valdivia and Scotia bathymetrical 
surveys. In March it would be necessary to 
decide whether the expedition was to winter 
in the south, but in no circumstances, if it can 
possibly be avoided, should the ship winter. 
She is there for oceanographical research, and 
must not be turned into a harbour hulk. Acci- 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 251 

dents will happen, and she might be beset and 
forced to winter, for which she must be thor- 
oughly prepared. But if there is a wintering, 
it should, if possible, be by a party of about 
half-a-dozen men in a house on shore. 

This project for Antarctic exploration does 
not lend itself in the least to the attainment 
of a high latitude. It is almost certain, in 
fact, that the ship in question would not pass 
the 75th parallel of latitude, and it is more 
than probable that it would pass little beyond 
70° S., but there is no doubt that for systematic 
serious scientific work, this would be one of the 
most profitable forms of Antarctic exploration 
that we could undertake. A single example 
is again taken of what is to be done in Antarctic 
seas, but it might be pointed out that half-a- 
dozen ships doing this same work in similar 
but different areas all round the South Pole 
would all obtain results of the highest importance. 

As regards land work in the Antarctic Regions, 
this can be undertaken more satisfactorily 
after we have obtained a more definite idea 
of the confines of the Great Southern Ocean 
around Antarctica. At present there is too 
much hazy conjecture, and we find what one 
believes to be part of Antarctica itself another 
declares to be an island. But the land work 
has begun, and to the keen landsman there is 
no reason why it should not be going ahead. 



252 POLAR EXPLORATION 

In the past the splendid land journeys of Scott 
and Armitage have given us the first definite 
idea of the interior of Antarctica, and Shackleton 
has been able to make further most important 
additions to our knowledge of the interior of 
the Antarctic continent. Similar inland as well 
as shore expeditions, such as that suggested 
by Dr. Forbes Mackay {Geographical Journal, 
January 1911), should be made at many points 
all round the Antarctic continent, but any 
expedition of this kind must necessarily have 
a good base station and be supported by a ship. 
The retention of a ship at the base is entirely 
unnecessary, though, as indicated previously, 
ice conditions might unwillingly entrap the 
vessel, in which case she must be properly pre- 
pared for wintering. 

Valuable land work could be carried out 
by a party accompanying this expedition to 
the Weddell and Biscoe Seas. Here the coast- 
line of Antarctica will probably be found to 
lie somewhere between 70° S. and 75° S. and 
to run in a more or less east and west direction. 
Having found a suitable anchorage, and the 
house being set up with a complete establish- 
ment for meteorologj'', magnetism, biology, and 
other scientific investigations, the party would 
make inland excursions towards the south. 
Should there be sufficient funds, it would be 
well to have a second ship for the express pur- 



AIMS AND OBJECTS 253 

pose of carrying an extra supply of stores and 
a house, rather than lumber up the oceano- 
graphical ship with all this material. If the 
lie of the land be found to be as expected, a 
serious attempt would be made to cross the 
Antarctic Continent and to emerge somewhere 
along the coast of the Ross Sea, the journey 
being made more or less along the meridian of 
Greenwich on the Atlantic side, and continuing 
on about the 180th meridian on the Pacific 
side. Such a journey would be of more in- 
trinsic value than a journey towards the South 
Pole and back. It would give a complete sec- 
tional idea of the continent of Antarctica, and 
the expedition would never be covering the same 
ground a second time. This is a big project, 
and one would have to face the chances of 
failure, but it ought to be attempted. Already 
England and Japan are in the field, and Ger- 
many and Australia are ready to start, and it 
is hoped that Scotland once more will shortly 
be enabled to join hands in co-operative ex- 
ploration to the Antarctic Regions. Shackleton 
and Scott have wisely led the way by actually 
trying motor power, which the author has been 
advocating for many years, for the accomplish- 
ment of such a journey. It is an experiment ; 
it may fail, but it is more likely to succeed, 
and even if it fails it will be one step in advance 
towards the use of motor power in future Polar 



254 POLAR EXPLORATION 

expeditions. All such pioneer attempts must 
take their chance of success or failure in a new 
application given to us by the advance of science. 

This area, where Bellingshausen and Biscoe 
almost a century ago have alone given us a clue, 
strengthened by the investigations of Ross and 
of the Scotia, offers an especially fine field for 
meteorological and magnetical research. This 
is because of the systematised series of meteor- 
ological stations which exist to the north-west- 
ward of the region right up to the South Ameri- 
can continent — thanks to the efforts of the Scotia 
and of the energetic Argentine Repubhc that 
has backed up and continued the work of that 
expedition. Such an expedition will give a 
very complete idea of the meteorology and mag- 
netism of the South Polar Regions in all western 
longitudes, and in meteorology especially is 
required a systematic and synchronous series 
of observations such as are here indicated. 

The world shrinks, but, after all, this is only 
from the point of view of those who do not 
look into futurity. Each scientific investiga- 
tion leads to the discovery of new scientific 
facts and problems not only unknown, but 
often entirely unconceived. Newer and wider 
fields for investigation will offer themselves 
in the future than in the past ; rather, then, 
should we say, the world expands ! 



INDEX 



Adelib Land, 23 

Amundsen, Captain Roald, 166, 170, 
242 

Animals, land, absence of, in Ant- 
arctic, 109-110 

Antarctic Regions, extent of, 15, 17- 
18, 32, 93; coasts of, 19, 22-23; 
connection with adjacent conti- 
nents, 20-22, 125-127, 173; con- 
tinental character of, 197, 234- 
235; former climate of, 126-127; 
interior of, 19 

Atmosphere, transparency of, 214- 
215 

Aurora, 220-233 

Bacteria, 85-87 

BaUoons for meteorological pur- 
poses, 210-216 

Barents Sea, 166, 170, 201, 203 

Bathymetrical survey, 169-176, 195- 
196 

Bay Ice, 54r-56 

Bear, Polar, 74-76, 111-116 

Beardmore Glacier, 39-43 

Beaufort Sea, 244 

Ben Nevis Observatory, 193-194, 
215, 221 

Bipolarity, 147-148 

Birds in Antarctic, 137-146; In 
Arctic, 134^137 

Black ice, 56 

Black snow, 83 

Blue mud, 173, 191-192 

Brown, Dr. Robert, 79, 130 

Brown, Dr. R. N. Rudmose, 78, 91- 
95 

Buclian, Dr. Alex, 224, 233 

Buchanan, J. Y., 38, 70, 182-185 

Biu-n, Murdoch, W. G., 29 

Cape pigeon, 142-144 

Challenger, 51-52, 149, 171-172, 175, 

182-185, 186, 190 
Charcot, Dr. Jean, 20, 81, 90, 94, 

165, 198, 229-230 
Coats, Major Andrew, 166, 170 
Coats Land, 19, 23-25, 172, 186, 196 
Cook, Captain James, 42 
Currents, cold, 182-190; warm, 180- 

184, 187. See also Ocean currents. 

Deeps, ocean, 172-173, 175 
Density of sea-water, 176-178 
Deposits of sea bottom, 190-192 



Diatoms of sea, 77-80, 159-160; on 

ice, 76-77; ooze, 80, 190-192 
Discoloured ice, 74r-77 
DredglQg In Antarctic, 151-152 
Driftwood in Arctic, 85-92 
Drygalskl, Dr. von, 23 

Edward Land, 37 
Emperor penguin, 137-138 
Enderby Land, 19, 24, 151 
Equipment for expeditions, 110 
Expedition, organisation of, 239- 

242, 248-251 
Exploration, aims of, 236-254 
Exploration of sea, importance of, 

169, 245-247 

Fauna, characteristics of marine, 89 
Fauna of Antarctic and relations 

with other faunas, 148 
Ferns in Antarctic, 94 
Field ice, 58, 65 
Floe ice, 58, 60 
Flowering plants In Antarctic, 90, 

93-94; in Arctic, 90, 95-102 
Fohn winds, 196 

Food in Polar expeditions, 103-108 
Foxes, Arctic, 122-124 
Fram, 77, 112, 189, 200, 239, 242 
Franklin expedition, 104, 110 
Franz Josef Land, 59, 80-81, 84, 91, 

96,99, 106, 115, 118, 179, 181, 200- 

201, 221-224, 225-229, 231 
Freezing-point of sea-water, 54, 71 

Graham Land, 19-22, 24, 38, 41, 45, 

81, 90, 94 
Green snow, 83 

Greenland, 100, 116, 134, 188-189 
Greenland Sea, soundings In, 170- 

176; physics of, 177-178, 180-181. 

201 
Grlnnell Land, 100, 116, 124 
"Growlers," 46 
Gulf Stream, 181 

JIansa, 189 

Hare, 121 

Health in Arctic regions, 85-87 

Hummocks, 61 

Hunters, 120, 122, 130, 133, 243 

Ice, discoloured, 74-77; formation 
of, 54-58; islands, 35; movements 
of, 60-65; navigation, 65-67; 
pack, 60-68; pancake, 57-58 



255 



256 



INDEX 



Icebergs, Antarctic, 26-27, 35-38, 

42-53; Arctic, 44; danger to 

ships, 47-53; effect on density of 

water, 177; weathering of, 39-40 

Ice-cap, formation of, 34-35 

Invertebrate life, 146-152, 155-168 

Kerguelen, 90, 141, 143 
Kites for meteorological purposes, 
207-210 

Llchena la Antarctic, 95 
Lime-juice. 105-106 

Magnetic observations, 217, 219, 

222-224 
Marliham, Admiral A. H., 124, 177 
Melting of snow, 68-69 
Meteorological work, importance of, 

193-195, 197-199, 202 
Meteorology of higb atmosphere, 

207-216 
Michael Sars, 181 
Mid-Atlantic rise, 174, 249-250 
Monaco, Princeof, 158, 166-167, 170, 

178, 208-216, 242 
Monsoons, relation of, to meteor- 
ology of Polar regions, 197, 202- 

203 
Moose, 121 

Mosses in Antarctic, 94 
Motor-power on sledge journeys, 

253-254 
Musk-ox, 116 

Nansen, Dr. F., 77, 112-114, 170, 

176, 178, 200 
N6v6, 34^35, 38-42 
Nimrod, 187. See also Shackleton 
Nordenskjold, Baron A. E., 166, 

170, 178-179, 180 
Nordenskjold, Dr. Otto, 38, 41-42, 

126, 195-196, 229 
Novaya Zemlya, 81, 96, 100, 179, 

181, 200 

Observations at the Poles, 11-14 
Ocean currents, 77, 188-190, 200. 

See also Currents 
Oceanographical research, 149-168, 

169-192 

Pack Ice, 60-68; danger of, 63-64 
Pancake ice, 57-58 
Peary, Admiral R. E., 170, 176, 202 
Penguins, 137-141 
Petrels, 142-145 
Pole hunting, 236 
Pourquoi Pas?, 94, 149, 164-165, 
172, 190 



Red snow, 81-83 

Reindeer, 118 

Ross Barrier, 22, 36-43 

Ross Sea, 19, 36-43 

Rotifers, tenacity of life of, 84-85 

Salinity of sea, 177, 185 
Salt in sea-Ice, 59-60, 70-71 
Scenery amid ice, 15-17, 26-31, 72- 

74 
Scotia, 24, 32, 52-53, 63, 95, 149, 

160-161, 171-175, 184-187, 189. 

191, 193-198, 207-208. 233-235 
Scott, Captain, R. F., 37, 38-39, 187, 

252 
Scottish Antarctic Expedition, 141- 

142, 152-163, 186, 195, 218, 248, 

254. See also Scotia 
Scurvy, 104-108 
Scurvy grass, 97-102 
Sea elephant, 131 
Seaweed, 88-89 
Seals, Antarctic, 131-132; Arctic, 

130, 132-133 
Shaokleton, Sir Ernest. 19, 37, 127. 

188, 218, 234, 252 
Soundings, difficulty of, 173 
South Georgia, 90, 128, 142, 174, 198 
Southern Ocean, 25, 32 
Spitsbergen, 45, 81, 85, 91, 96, 99, 

101, 102, 120, 122-124, 129, 177, 

178, 181, 201-202, 211, 215, 243 

Temperature, lowest recorded, 33 
Temperature of sea, 54, 177-178, 

182-185 
Termination Land, 23, 171 
Terns, 146 
Thermometers, exposure of, 203- 

206 
Thunderstorms and aurorte, 220-221 
Tidal observations, 233-235 
Towneta, 159-160 
Trawling, deep sea, 151-158, 161- 

162, 186 

Unicorn, 130 

Victoria Land, 21-22, 94 

Walrus, 132 

Water, supply of drinking, 68-70 

Weddell Sea, 19, 24. 37. 43. 171-173, 

186, 191-192, 197, 203, 252 
Whales in Antarctic, 127-129; in 

Arctic, 129-130 
"White Ice," 56 
Wilhelm Land, 23-24, 94 



MAY 27 1911 



